Hearts of Steel
by Butcher-Bird190
Summary: A portal opens, connecting two realities in which humanity is in a desperate struggle for survival. Co-authored/edited by Cpl.Leon and SCM7.
1. Across Dimensions

Authors Note: So I decided to make this a full length fic after all. The preview that is currently up will be the third chapter. Thanks for all the support and enjoy!

 _A reclaimer more powerful than all the rest._

 _With the shape of a human, but with a heart of steel._

Monitor 797 Lambent Light pondered these thoughts as he slowly floated through the decrepit and decaying forerunner installation known simply as "the gate".

The cool blue aura that the ancient forerunner ancilla usually emanated flashed an aggressive red as hundreds of thousands of years of inactivity weighed down on the AI's central processing core.

The rampancy was beginning, and 797 knew it.

However, 797 still had a job to do. Without hesitation, Lambent Light purged the corrupt portions of its memory banks labeled "secondary moral guidelines" in order to ensure that its prime directives remained untouched by the decay.

Lambent Light's movement became erratic, and it staggered as its processing core struggled to compensate for what had been deleted with lines of "filler code".

That move couldn't be used many more times. Each time it was done, 797's information matrix decreased in size as code was brutally stripped from it to fill the void of corrupted material. If this procedure was done enough times, 797 would enter the AI equivalent of a vegetative state.

The aging monitor knew that it was running out of time.

797 analyzed the possible candidates. Ideally, it would have transported _all_ of them, but the repair sentinels had stopped functioning millennia ago, and the installation itself had been corroded by the passage of time. The installation could be used once, and only once. Thus, a choice had to be made between the four strongest candidates.

 _Special Class destroyer, Fubuki._

797 had considered this one, as she had the spirit that was needed for the job ahead. However, though she was fast, she lacked raw power, something that was to be needed in troves for her mission.

 _Aircraft Carrier Akagi._

At first glance, Akagi looked to be the perfect candidate. Proud, confident, and strong. But again, 797 found her unsuitable. She was too fragile, and a plasma weapon hitting her flight deck would spell her doom as she would be unable to launch planes and retaliate.

 _Fast Battleship Kongou_

She was Unpredictable. That would be a problem for 797 and his plans. Therefore, she was Unsuitable.

 _Fast Battleship Yamato_

Powerful and rugged, Yamato was the pride of fleet. Though she was soft spoken, her combat abilities caused the others to look up to her. She was a natural leader.

She was the perfect candidate.

Had 797's emotional emulator still been functioning, it would have felt a pang of sadness for what it was about to do. For his own use, the monitor was about to rip a being away from her friends and loved ones whose survival depended on her power. However, the monitor recognized that this move was necessary, and thus proceeded with the activation sequence.

Once the final power cores were in place, a harmonic buzzing filled the installation. 797 knew that the installation wouldn't survive a firing, but his prime directives placed completion of his mission higher than all other priorities, self preservation included.

797 went through with final activation procedures, and for an instant, a star in the sky glowed brighter than all the others before being consumed by darkness.


	2. First Contact

Hoya POV:

 _Why let the eggheads have all the fun_ , thought Hoya as he pressed his gauntlet clad palm firmly on the glowing panel.

Normally, even Hoya wouldn't act so rashly, but he was practically dying of boredom. He had been sent along with Palmer on orders of Capt. Lasky to do a cleanup op on Requiem's surface. Basically, they were to patrol some old forerunner structures and make sure that a grunt strapped full of high explosives wasn't waiting in a corner for a group of USNC scientists to walk by.

Hoya hated patrol duty. His trigger finger itched so much that if the safety of his SAW hadn't been firmly in place, he would have already emptied a mag into the large rock formations looming overhead. He needed to shoot something, and he needed to shoot something this instant. Hoya took this moment to duly recognized that he probably had a condition.

The panel responded to his touch, and a rock covered door slowly opened at the bottom of the cliff face, next to the panel. Hoya peered inside, and saw that the entryway was connected to a long, dark, narrow corridor that stretched on for quite a while. Hoya saw something flash on his motion detector, then gasp as he heard movement.

Something was in there.

It was too dark to see clearly, but Hoya thought he saw the outline of a large gun barrel that was slowly rotating towards him. Then, two crimson eyes suddenly appeared, reflecting what little light there was in the tunnel right at Hoya's visor. That was all the provocation that Hoya needed to start shooting.

Hoya felt the hefty recoil of his M739 LMG as it sprayed whatever was in the corridor with a fusillade of automatic firepower. Tracer fire illuminated the dark corridor with blinding flashes of light as the rounds from the machine gun found their mark.

Yamato POV:

Seeing a flash of light was the last thing Yamato remembered.

What happened? Looking around her, Yamato noted that she was inside of some kind of structure that connected to the outside via a dark corridor. At the end of the corridor was a roughly humanoid shape outlined by the bright light coming from the outside.

Where was she? Yamato's thoughts were interrupted by a loud noise and a flash of light. She then realized that she was being shot. Dozens of bullets hit her all over, but Yamato felt nothing but light flicks where each one hit her. Yamato growled with annoyance. In a show of power she walked straight through the gunfire, not even bothering to evade it, towards whatever was shooting her. It was going to pay.

Hoya POV:

While firing, Hoya checked his motion detector again and that's when he realized he was in deep trouble. His target was actually _moving towards him._ It was almost as if his rifle fire was having no effect at all!

Confused, Hoya payed closer attention to what was happening down range. To his utter surprise, Hoya saw that the rounds from his SAW were ricocheting off the target and bouncing around the inside of the corridor, causing a noise like metal rain.

Hoya watched his ammo counter tick down.

 _30... 20... 10... *click*_

There it was, the dead man's click. He was out of ammo and the target was still coming towards him, unhindered. Hoya quickly pulled two M9 fragmentation grenades from his belt, pulled their pins, and threw them into the corridor. Two explosions echoed across the ravine, but the target was still approaching him.

At this point Hoya realized that he was going to need some help. He didn't like calling for help, but even Hoya realized that he was outmatched against this unknown foe.

"This is Spartan Hoya, requesting immediate assistance. I'm engaged with an unknown hostile foot-mobile, presumed forerunner in origin. Conventional weapons have had no effect thus far, proceeding to CQC. I repeat, requesting immediate assistance"

 _Palmer should be here soon_ , thought Hoya. With that taken care of and no ammunition left, Hoya decided to pull out his knife and charge into the corridor at the target, the thought of retreat never having even crossed his mind.

Hoya aimed a stab at his target, and was surprised to see that the titanium-carbide combat knife that had impaled the skull of many a Zealot simply bounced off. In the darkness, Hoya aimed a blind punch at the target, and was pleasantly surprised to feel it connect. A moment later, he severely regretted his decision as he felt his wrist bone crack and his fingers dislocate. It felt like he had just tried to slug the front of a Scorpion tank! Had he missed and punched the wall?

Hoya flailed in the darkness holding his injured hand. Suddenly a jackhammer blow nailed him in the side of the helmet. With one his his energy shields had been brought down, the side of his helmet had been crushed, and his jaw had been shattered. Hoya felt his foot break as something incredibly heavy crushed his armored boot. Hoya stumbled, but was given no respite as an incredible impact hit him in the chest, flattening his armor and sending him flying out of the corridor and onto the rocky ground outside.

Lying on his back in a pool of his own blood, Hoya tilted his head up to look back towards the corridor's entrance, where his target stepped out of the darkness and into the light. Hoya took his first look at the mysterious enemy, and was shocked to see what appeared to be a young civilian woman with large cannons strapped to her sides.

Hoya prayed that this was all just a horrible, horrible nightmare, or some drug induced psychiatric hallucination prescribed by a shrink to correct his trigger-happy ways.

As the woman slowly stepped closer to him, Hoya pulled out his pistol in an act of defiance and prepared to meet his maker.


	3. Mistaken Identity

Author's note: This used to be the preview, but since I decided to write out the whole thing, it's now the third chapter. This way everything is in the order that it's supposed to be in.

Palmer POV

With a clang, Spartan Palmer slammed close the bolt of her custom-outfitted SR99 anti-material rifle. She felt a series of small vibrations through the palm of her trigger hand as the 14.5x114 mm tungsten sabots were fed into the firing chamber. Satisfied, she shouldered it and felt the magnetic hard points on the back of her suit take hold of the deadly weapon.

Suddenly, her earpiece squawked to life.

"This is Spartan Hoya, requesting immediate assistance. I'm engaged with an unknown hostile foot-mobile, presumed forerunner in origin. Conventional weapons have had no effect thus far, proceeding to CQC. I repeat, requesting immediate assistance"

 _More muscle than brains,_ thought Palmer. If Hoya's SAW couldn't bring down whatever he was fighting, what kind of thought process lead to the conclusion that his fists could? Really, Sarah shouldn't have been too surprised. This was Hoya after all. Nevertheless, Palmer took a few moments to sigh and shake her head before heading to Hoya's last known location.

Palmer's HUD signaled that Hoya was just 300 meters in front of her and 50 meters below her, at the bottom of a small rocky ravine. As she approached the ridgeline, Palmer took note that something was wrong. According to her motion sensor, the yellow dot that represented Hoya wasn't moving. However, something else on her sensor, something that appeared as a large red dot, definitely was. And it was on top of Hoya.

Palmer tried to raise Hoya on comms.

 _Silence_

Assuming the worst, Palmer triggered the active camouflage ability built into her MJOLNIR Mk2 scout variant. Patches of energy enveloped her form, making her all but invisible to the naked human eye. She crawled to the edge of the cliff face and silently peered her stealthed helmet over it. What she saw was something that she would never forget.

Hoya was laying limp on the ground, his helmet shattered and chest armor caved in. A pool of deep crimson blood began to form around his prone form. Standing over him was not a Promethean knight or Brute Chieftain like she was expecting, but rather something that made Palmer think that perhaps she had been hit a little too hard in the head during her last op. She simply couldn't believe her eyes.

Standing before Palmer was what appeared to be a 20-something year old unarmored woman wearing what had to be the strangest piece of combat equipment ever constructed. It was a massive, bulky ring of metal flanked by what appeared to be rotational gun emplacements. Furthermore, she was scantily clad in clothes that could only be fairly described as "risque". Palmer almost wanted to laugh, and if it wasn't for the fact that Hoya's vital signs were getting progressively weaker, she probably would have too.

"An unknown enemy is the most dangerous". Remembering those words that had been drilled into her head all throughout her military career, Palmer hesitated. Despite her adversary's frankly ridiculous appearance, Palmer made a note to herself that underestimation of this threat could very well lead to an untimely death. Well that or she'd end up like Hoya. Palmer wasn't sure which was worse.

Her enemy's capabilities were completely unknown to her, and as such, left Palmer in a bit of a tough spot as to how to proceed. Furthermore, her enemy was, or at least appeared to be human. And although attacking a Spartan was a very open declaration of hostility against the UNSC, Palmer technically had no proof that the goofy-looking woman was responsible for Hoya's injuries. Then again, Hoya's comm message to her before he went silent would suggest the opposite.

Palmer hated what she was about to do, but the flashing yellow indicator that showed Hoya's vitals told her that she really didn't have a choice in the matter. She slowly reached out and pressed a button on the side of her helmet that would feed a live video stream of whatever she was seeing back to an operator's desk HQ. _Really, the less I have of those bungholes back at mission command breathing down my back on every op that I'm sent on the better,_ thought Palmer. She rather resented how all the idiots somehow found their way to the top of the military food chain. Not to say that there weren't idiots near the bottom too. Hoya was (hopefully still) living proof of that.

Palmer focused her helmet mounted camera on the mysterious woman.

"Operator, please do tell me, is there perhaps any chance in hell that the UNSC has data on whatever that is?" spat Palmer.

The Operator replied. "Palmer, what I'm seeing right now is what most UNSC men refer to as a 'very attractive woman'. I know they did some weird stuff to your thyroid gland that suppresses any kind of sex drive, but you have to agree with me here when I say she's smoking hot."

Cheeky bastard.

"Look, this isn't a joke operator. We have one Spartan critically injured and in need of an immediate extraction. Patch me through to Capt. Lasky if you aren't going to be of any help" said Palmer, impatience growing by the second.

"and if Hoya dies I'm personally going to rip the tongue out of that smartass mouth of yours!"

Her comm went silent for an instant before a masculine voice answered.

"Palmer, this is Lasky. I'm a little preocupied with a few Covvie dropships that somehow managed to get the jump on us. This better be really important, and I can hardly imagine that you're having trouble on that little cleanup op of yours"

Lasky was one of a select few of Palmer's commanding officers that she actually respected, and as such, was a little hesitant to explain her situation for fear of being labeled a lunatic. Palmer couldn't really think of much to say, so she let her camera do the talking.

Now Lasky practically embodied the "I've seen it all" grizzled war veteran persona, and as such, rarely showed any kind of surprise. When the Master Chief himself came waltzing onto his bridge after 7 years of being presumed dead, Lasky had barely shrugged. When an ancient forerunner warrior-servant used his millennia old prison to assault the Infinity, Lasky hadn't even blinked. This was different though. For first time in Palmer's collective memory, Captain Lasky was at a complete loss for words. Palmer could practically picture his jaw on the floor.

After a few moments of silence, Lasky regained his composure.

"Well Palmer, since she hasn't taken any known hostile actions yet, I advise you to keep an eye out on her. With the scope of your rifle, might I add. If she threaten Hoya in any way, take the shot."

"What about Hoya?", asked Palmer

"Hoya's built tough. I think he can last a bit longer. We really need to figure out exactly what she is, especially given her mysterious appearance and proximity to major Forerunner relics. Just observe a little longer, and if Hoya flatlines, we can have a helljumper medic next to him in 30 seconds. Such are the wonders of orbital insertion.", remarked Lasky.

"I've assigned one of my Lt.s to deal with the covvie transports. I'll be watching the situation unfold through your helmet cam and giving orders as needed."

"Yes sir", replied Palmer.

With her active camouflage system blending her bulky MJOLNIR clad form with the background of the sheer rocky cliff face she was perched upon, Palmer took aim at her target through her illuminated scope.

Suddenly, Hoya's vitals spiked and Palmer saw his battered and bloody form move a bit. The woman noticed this too, as she moved her head down to look at him.

With a fluid grace that Palmer didn't think was possible in his critical condition, Hoya smoothly drew an M6D magnum from his side mounted holster and quickly squeezed off three shots at the woman standing over him.

With her scope further augmenting her already superhuman vision, Palmer was clearly able to see where Hoya's bullets impacted on the mysterious woman's body. One hit her on her left mid-thigh above her tall sock, but below her skirt. Another impacted her torso, and the last winged her in the shoulder. To Palmer's utter shock and dismay, the deadly .50 caliber pistol rounds flattened themselves against the woman's skin before dropping to the ground harmlessly. The woman hadn't even flinched.

"did you just see-" Palmer began to say

"Yes I did", Interjected Lasky.

The woman responded by lifting her arm, as if to hit Hoya and crush the life out of him.

"Weapons free! you are clear to engage!" shouted Lasky

With skill, Palmer lined up her weapon's sights on the target's exposed neck. Normally, she would have gone for a textbook center-of-mass shot at this kind of range and angle, but after seeing her target shrug off M6D rounds like they were nothing, Palmer decided a neck shot was in order to make sure the target was dropped in one hit. Sure, it would be a tougher shot, but she was a Spartan. She shot Sanghelli pilots out of their Banshees all the time. A neckshot on a stationary target just 300 meters away was a walk in the park by comparison. Time slowed as Palmer's hand tightened around the trigger. She took a deep breath in, and as she slowly released it she made the final adjustments for her shot.

 _Adjusting Windage to Compensate for turbulence... Elevation tweaked to account for firing angle and range... perfect._

The muzzle flash of the massive rifle blinded her for a second before her vision cleared and she once again saw the mysterious woman with her fist poised to end Hoya's life. There was a split second of calm, punctuated by the cracking of a 14.5mm armor piercing sabot as it shattered the atmosphere between Palmer and her target. Then, through her scope, Palmer saw the target's head jerk violently upward, her body knocked away from Hoya by the force of the impact. She landed a few feet away, unmoving.

 _Target Eliminated_

Palmer focused her scope back to Hoya. To her great relief, he was moving and struggling to sit up. Suddenly, another movement caught Palmer's attention from the corner of her scope.

No, it was impossible. She refused to believe it. The woman she had just shot _**in the neck**_ with a 14.5 mm armor piercing round was getting back up. This didn't make sense.

Panicking, Palmer lined up another shot, this time on the woman's forehead, and yanked the trigger. Palmer followed the vapor trail of her round all the way to the target and was horrified to see the hardened tungsten penetrator shatter upon impacting the woman's forehead. This time, the woman barely flinched.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

A round from the SR-99 could core the brain right out of a fully armored and energy shielded Brute Chieftain at 2,000 meters. Likewise, it could rip an arm clean off of a Jackal from a _near miss._ Not even the sturdy covenant Wraith tanks could take SR-99 fire without being rendered full of holes.

Just what was she shooting at?

Yamato POV:

Yamato was confused. That was an understatement. Perhaps those last few abyssal 230 kg bombs that landed on her head had rattled her brain a little too hard. She wasn't sure.

The injured figure that she stood over was bleeding. That couldn't be right, abyssals didn't bleed. She had never seen anything quite like it, and perhaps her judgement that it had indeed been an abyssal was a little rash. Then again, whatever it was did attack her without provocation.

It had blazed at her with some kind of automatic weapon, and when that had no effect he had tried a few grenades. The shock wave from those had knocked Yamato around a bit, but the deadly shrapnel hadn't made a mark on her armored skin.

Then the fool tried to engage her in close quarters. It charged at her with a knife in hand, aiming a stab at the side of her neck. Amused, Yamato let the attack connect. As she expected, the knife bounced harmlessly off. If her attacker was surprised, he didn't show it as he followed up with a quick punch to the gut. Yamato actually felt that, but she was willing to bet that her attacker felt it more. With a cry of pain, her attacker clasped his now shattered hand. Giving him no respite, Yamato had her opponent on the ground in three swift moves. Incidentally, those 3 moves had demolished her attacker's armor, and seriously injured whatever was inside.

That was when Yamato noticed the blood. She stood still, horrified that she might have killed a human, which was her duty to protect. Her attacker's broken body began to move. Good Yamato thought, so he wasn't dead after all. With great difficulty, Yamato's attacker drew a weapon and pointed it squarely at Yamato. Under normal circumstances, Yamato would have ended her opponent's life then and there. However, the possibility that her enemy was actually a human stopped her from doing so. Fearing any defensive action from her would further harm the possible human, Yamato let the rounds hit her. These ones were a bit more powerful than the ones she had been hit with earlier, but she still barely felt them. Small arms fire was more an annoyance than an actual threat to Yamato, who had the distinct honor of being the toughest and most armored shipgirl in the entire fleet. Attacks that could level a skyscraper barely slowed Yamato down.

Yamato raised a hand to swipe her attacker's weapon away, but that was when something unexpected happened. Something heavy struck her in the neck with enough force to knock her down. The attack hadn't got through her armor, not even close, but it had been enough to get Yamato's full undivided attention. She began to get up, and sensing another hit was imminent, braced herself. This time, the attack hit Yamato squarely on the forehead. She staggered a bit, that one had kind of stung!

It was times like these that Yamato was thankful for the fact that she was an armored battleship and not some tin-can destroyer with cardboard for armor. Those last two hits probably would have killed a destroyer class shipgirl outright, or at least incapacitated her.

Yamato quickly scanned the cliff face for her attacker and saw... nothing. On intuition, Yamato activated her powerful Mk2 Mod. 2 surface radar that was hidden within her headpiece and got a radar return overlooking the cliff that outlined an armored human-sized figure holding a comically large weapon. With knowledge of her attacker's position, Yamato raised her arms in a cross shape defensive position between her head and the attacker before another round, most likely aimed for her one of her eyes, pinged harmlessly off her left forearm and impacted the ground somewhere behind her.

Assuming that her newest attacker was another human, Yamato decided to take a nonlethal approach of attack. "Nonlethal" and "46 cm naval gun" are contradictory terms, but Yamato had no choice but to try. Lining up a shot with the cliff directly under where her armored opponent now sat, Yamato let loose with a salvo from her main battery.

Palmer POV

"Palmer, get out of there now!", screamed Lasky

"With all due respect sir, I am not leaving Hoya with that _thing.",_ shouted Palmer

"Forget Hoya", said Lasky. "Whatever that woman is, she makes Tarturus himself look like a mewling kitten. Hell, she could probably give the Didact a run for his money! I don't need two Spartan KIAs"

Palmer was about to respond when she noticed something. Her eyes grew wide as the mysterious woman scanning the cliff face locked eyes on her position. That shouldn't have been possible. Her MJOLNR Gen 2 active camouflage was supposed to be flawless, undetectable even to the trained eye of a warrior elite. The again, the amount of firepower her target had just absorbed without damage told her that she had some incredibly powerful abilities. Palmer prayed that seeing through active camo wasn't one of them. Even still, her target was slowly rotating the large gun emplacements that she was wearing directly at Palmer's hidden location.

"Uh... Lasky?", said Palmer with uncertainty.

"yeah, I see it. Run."

Palmer barely had time to get up when a huge explosion rocked the cliffside, and Commander Palmer was abruptly swept to the bottom of the cliff courtesy of a massive avalanche of dirt and stone.

Plamer retched. She saw her own blood splatter the inside of her visor. Pain: It was everywhere. That was a good sign. That meant she hadn't broken her neck. She tentatively moved her limbs one by one, but when she tried to move her right leg, she almost passed out with pain. Dislocated, she thought, possibly broken.

The black spots dancing across her vision cleared just enough for to make out where she was. Palmer was lying sideways, partially buried on a mound of rubble only a hundred meters away from her strange opponent. Her opponent took a good look at her, head cocked to the side, like she was curious. Palmer stared back and almost scoffed at how harmless she appeared. Her clothes had been torn to shreds by half an armory's worth of UNSC ordnance, but her skin remained unmarked except for two small bruises forming where Palmer had hit her with an anti-armor rifle. Her eyes radiated sadness rather than a lust for bloodshed. Palmer thought that the death blow would come any instant now, but it never came. The woman just stood there, almost as if she was regretful of what she just did. What she was just forced to do. In that instant, Palmer realized that this mysterious enemy wasn't an enemy at all.

Suddenly, Palmer's radio barked "Archer Missile strike inbound eta 20 seconds. Danger close. I repeat, danger close"

It must have been Lasky. He was the only one that could order an archer missile strike on such short notice. She was flattered that he would go to such lengths to save her life, but her life really didn't need saving. The presumed hostile wasn't a hostile. She was just acting out of self defense.

"Lasky I need you to call off that missile strike. This sounds insane, but you need to trust me on this!"

 _Silence_

Palmer cursed. The fall must have damaged her microphone. She saw the targeting laser of an archer missile line up directly with where the woman was currently standing. The woman looked confused at the circle of light that was slowly enclosing her. She made no attempt to dodge or run away, and didn't seem to know how much danger she was in. Even with her incredible durability, Paler doubted that the woman could take a direct hit from a ship-killing archer missile and live. She had to be warned.

Palmer lifted her aching arms and with great effort ripped off her broken helmet.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE", shouted Palmer at the top of her aching lungs.

All Palmer got was a blank stare. In desperation, Palmer pointed towards where the woman was currently standing, and then after a slight pause, simulated the shape of an explosion with her hands.

That got the message through, but it was too late. The woman barely had time to leap to the side before a massive explosion and fireball consumed her. Palmer saw the shockwave coming and braced herself. She was outside of the missile's fireball "kill" radius, but even the shockwave of an archer missile at a further distance was potent. It slammed into her and Commander Palmer saw darkness


	4. Examination

0930 Hours, June 15, 2558 / UNSC Infinity, in orbit around Forerunner shield world Requiem

Captain Lasky tapped his feet nervously on the sheet metal floor of Infinity's infirmary. Frankly, he was exhausted, as he had spent the last 24 hours of his life doing non-stop damage control. The rumor that two Spartans had been soundly defeated in battle by pretty lady wielding big cannons was so ridiculous that there was no possible way that anybody who hadn't actually witnessed the events would believe it. Or so Lasky thought. In reality, the story spread like wildfire, and Lasky had been doing everything within his power to stop ONI from getting a whiff of what was going on.

With a hiss, the sliding metal door opened and a man dressed in all white walked into the medical research room before sitting down next to Lasky.

"Hell of a day, huh?" inquired the man dressed in white

"I've had worse", replied Lasky

The two men looked at each other for a moment before offering each other their hands.

"I'm Dr. Cain, newly appointed head of Infinity's infirmary and medical research center. I'm also in charge off any Spartan related medical needs.", said the man in white.

"Captain Lasky", said Lasky curtly.

They let go of each others' hands.

Dr. Cain spoke again. "Lets get down to business shall we? I was instructed to first brief you on the state of medical supplies within the-

"I don't care about that", interrupted Lasky. "I need to know how my Spartans are doing"

There was a brief pause before the doctor pulled out his holopad and tapped a few buttons. The room darkened and a projector lowered down from the ceiling and began displaying.

"Captain, if you would please pay attention to the screen.", said the doctor

Lasky saw a rather complicated diagram of a human body. He noted that the left upper leg bone was cracked, and that there were multi-colored splotches on the diagram's abdomen.

"This is a compiled image taken of Spartan Palmer by the new full body imaging device our research center has concocted. With the wealth of forerunner tech aboard the Infinity, we've been making medical breakthroughs at an unprecedented rate. As you can see, Palmer has suffered a minor fracture in her left femur, as well as some moderate internal bleeding. She'll be up and running within a week."

Lasky sighed with relief. At least one was OK. The image changed. This time, it was barely recognizable as human. The figure's right hand and foot had been smashed into dust. The splotches that dotted Palmer's image were widespread over the entire figure. Lasky counted at least 7 broken ribs.

"This is Hoya. Pulverised bones, punctured lungs, massive hemorrhaging, it's a miracle that he's still alive. In fact, he wouldn't be if it wasn't for your mysterious guest that's currently unconscious and being strapped down in a cargo space meant to keep mammoth tanks from shifting around during slipspace travel. That archer missile practically detonated on top of him, you know. I saw the video feeds. At the last second, that woman actually leaped on top of Hoya and spared him the brunt of the damage. If it wasn't for her, we'd be dealing with massive 3rd degree burns and shrapnel wounds on top of Hoya's already critical injuries. In other words, if it wasn't for her, we'd be talking what size bodybag to Hoya home in rather than his recovery. As it stands, Hoya will be out of action for at least 2-3 months. He'll be alright though."

A huge weight lifted off of Lasky's shoulders. After Palmer's camera suddenly shut off, Lasky had ordered the missile strike thinking that Hoya was already dead. When he found out this wasn't the case, Lasky had been mortified. He thought he was responsible for the death of his own Spartan. Luckily, this wasn't the case.

"What about that woman? What did your analysis of her turn up?", questioned Lasky with eagerness.

"Well I have to say I've never been more intrigued by anything in my 30 years of medical research" replied the doctor, a sparkle in his eye.

He continued talking with an enthusiasm only matched by a young child in a sweets shop.

"We did scans of her skeletal structure using a full-range mass spectrometer, and the returns were unlike anything that I've ever seen. Her bones are infused with a nanomaterial lattice of a substance that closely matches mid-20th century naval structural steel, of all things. The particles have been hyper condensed and arranged geometrically with maximum shear strength in mind, and as such, we estimate that her bones are an astounding 10-15 times harder to break than a Spartan's already nigh unbreakable skeletal structure. That explains how she was able to break both Hoya's and Palmer's bones without suffering any injuries of her own."

"She's also incredibly strong. Her muscles are infused with some kind of metal for structural support, and her heart is actually compartmentalized into 12 separate sections and resembles what can only be described as a biological combustion engine. We estimate that she can bench 10 tons, maybe more. Her lungs act like the air intakes and exhaust ports of this engine, and we predict that biological or chemical weapons will have no effect on her respiratory system. Her digestive system is one massive catalytic converter that takes organic material, like normal food, and turns it into an oily carbon-rich substance for use by her engine-heart. Even though she looks perfectly human from the outside, her internal workings represent a heavy combat vehicle more than anything else."

Lasky whistled. "And you were able to get all that from a simple body scan?"

"Forerunner technology is indeed impressive, Captain" responded Dr. Cain

"what about her blood test"? inquired Lasky

"Ah well that's the problem. We weren't able to get a blood test"

"Why so?", asked Lasky "Afraid she was going to wake up and make you look like Hoya?"

"Yes", admitted the doctor "That wasn't the problem though. We had our techs operate surgical robots to try and take a blood sample with heavy-duty titanium needles that are usually used for grafting bone onto Spartans. The needles simply bent or broke on contact with her skin. We must have went tried at least 20 times."

"I'm not surprised", remarked Lasky, "she was practically laughing at our gunfire."

"This brings me to my next point", continued Cain. "Her skin, by our estimates, ranges in protection to the equivalent of 300 mm at the thinnest to 650 mm at the thickest of Titanium-A battle plate armor. If you aren't a numbers man, picture the front of a grizzly heavy tank. Now take that and multiply it by 2. That's the kind of protection that this woman has on her **weakest parts,** which are located on her backside. The toughest parts of her body, which are composed of her head, torso, and forearms/hands, reach almost as much equivalent protection as the hull of a UNSC Charon-class light frigate! Needless to say, trying to kill her with small arms fire from any angle is a fruitless endeavor. She could probably even take a few 90mm shells from a scorpion tank and shrug them off. She gets this incredible resilience because her skin is infused with a similar kind of hyper-condensed metallic nano particles that her bones are. However, the material that composes a great deal of her skin isn't structural steel, but rather rolled homogenous steel, an armor plate that was used widely in 20th century war machines."

"I'm noticing a pattern here", said Lasky "Maybe this has something to do with those cannons that she had. Speaking of which, where are they?"

"Those things are a whole other beast", replied Cain. "the advanced weaponry research division is practically going nuts as we speak"

"I'll have to ask them to brief me later", stated Lasky. "please continue"

"All this hyper condensed metal within her has made her incredibly heavy for her size. She weighed in at just under three and a half tons according to our charts."

"I pity the fool that decides to call her heavy", interjected Lasky with a chuckle

Cain acted like he didn't hear him. "We also took a look at the clothes that she wears. Analysis shows that they are just regular clothes, outside the fact that the way they were manufactured is in line with once again, a mid 20th century production plant.

Lasky took a moment to digest all of this information before asking "did she suffer any injuries from the missile strike"?

Cain pulled up an video on the projector. "Captain, this is live video feed from where she is being held".

Through the screen, Lasky saw the woman lying on the cold steel floor, her hands and feet bound by chains thicker than a telephone pole. She looked calm, peaceful even. Lasky also noted that she was really quite attractive. He would have to keep some of the less self-controlled marines away from her lest there be unnecessary casualties.

"Though she sustained no injuries from her clash with your spartans outside of two small bruises that I presume were courtesy of an anti-armor rifle, she was knocked out cold from the concussive wave caused by the point-blank detonation of an archer missile. She sustained no burns from the fireball that she shielded Hoya from. In fact, now that we have knowledge of her internal workings, we can safely say that she can survive having her body temperature raised to over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit without suffering ill effects. A flamethrower would be useless against her.

Lasky was about to ask another question when he heard a noise. He quickly looked to the screen and saw that the woman had opened her eyes. She was awake.


	5. An Exchange of Words

1130 Hours, June 15, 2558 / UNSC Infinity, in orbit around Forerunner shield world Requiem

Yamato POV:

Yamato's head pounded. She opened her eyes, and was greeted by a harsh artificial light. She tried to move, to get up, but found that she was tied down with thick chains that not even she could break. Suddenly a door opened and two human men walked in, one dressed in white and one dressed in dark green. A wave of relief washed over Yamato. She hadn't been captured by abyssals. Then Yamato realized that the two humans that she had hurt in her previous fight likely belonged to whatever organization that currently held her captive. That could be a problem, but at least humans could be reasoned with.

They approached her with caution, and as such, Yamato dropped any premises of a struggle against the chains. They began to speak, but it was a language that Yamato couldn't comprehend. Though the way they talked reminded Yamato of the outbursts of random english that her fellow shipgirl Kongou was prone to.

Thinking about Kongou really brought the weight of the emotional baggage down on Yamato. Her friends were all fighting for their lives against an unending abyssal onslaught while Yamato was here, locked up in a strange far away land. Yamato was supposed to be their flagship, their leader. What were they to do without her?

The two men, having realized that Yamato couldn't understand what they were saying, stopped talking to her. Instead, they talked with each other for a moment before procuring a small device. Were they going to hurt her? Angered and scared, Yamato shouted a few lightening-quick curses in Japanese at the two strange men standing before her.

Lasky POV

"Did you hear that?", asked Lasky

"Sure did", replied Cain. "Sounded like Japanese to me. Even if it wasn't I think it's worth a shot."

With dexterous fingers befitting a doctor, Cain quickly tapped a few buttons on the 2 small black devices that he was holding in his left hand.

"that should do the trick" said Cain. "Now how do we get them on her?"

Lasky took the two pieces and kneeled next to the bound woman. She recoiled, but once again, the chains held her firmly in place. Lasky dropped the two pieces next to her and lifted his hands away, signaling that he meant no harm. That seemed to get the message through. They mysterious woman relaxed again. Lasky slowly inserted one of the small devices into the left ear of the mysterious woman, and placed the other on the right side of her neck.

"Attention, can you understand me?", announced Lasky.

The woman nodded.

"damn Cain, R and D really outdid themselves with this universal translator", remarked Lasky

Lasky continued "You are currently held captive by the UNSC on charges of assaulting two Spartan supersoldiers. However, this is likely subject to change based on video feed and Spartan Palmer's testimony that you were simply acting out of self defense. Furthermore, you saved Spartan Hoya's life by body blocking a poorly fired archer missile strike. Chances are that you will receive no punishment provided that you comply with certain conditions given your unique nature"

"With that all out of the way, please do tell us your name"

The woman opened her mouth, then closed it a moment later, as if she wasn't sure that she wanted to speak. Eventually, with an elegant voice as soft as the clouds, the mysterious woman spoke.

"Name ship of the Yamato class, Yamato"


	6. Explanations

1330 Hours, June 15, 2558 / UNSC Infinity, in orbit around Forerunner shield world Requiem

POV Lasky:

"Wait, wait, you're telling me that you _are the Yamato_. As in the massive steel battleship used by Imperial Japan back when humanity still used blue-water navies?", exclaimed Lasky, disbelief covering his face.

"Precisely, and I really don't understand what you mean by 'blue water navy' and 'back then'", answered Yamato in a cool and collected manner.

Lasky was utterly flummoxed. Sure the medical examination of the woman claiming to be the Yamato had thrown him for a loop, but Lasky figured that perhaps she was actually some kind of forerunner-constructed super android. That would have been "normal", at least for the crew of the Infinity. However, for her to say she was actually a human made battleship of a bygone era of warfare was the last thing on a very, very, long list of things that Lasky had expected to hear. He had only one question.

"How!?" Screamed Lasky, utterly perturbed.

The woman tilted her head, as if confused.

In her soothing voice she said "Haven't you ever heard of shipgirls? I thought they were common knowledge by now..."

There was silence for a moment before it was shattered by a very confused and frustrated Lasky.

"And please, do pray tell, what in the name of everything holy is a "shipgirl"? Yelled Lasky, spittle flying from his mouth.

"Oh, well we're basically the spirits of sunken warships that have taken a female human form to protect humanity against the abyssals," Yamato stated in a matter-of-factly tone, as if what she said hadn't just been the most ludicrous thing that Lasky had ever heard of in his many years fighting giant dinosaur beasts shooting plasma and romping about the ruins of an ancient, practically omnipotent, extinct race of aliens.

A loud banging resonated the room as Lasky repeatedly slammed his head against the plexiglass window of the hanger, muttering to himself about how he was sure that ONI had spiked his morning coffee.

Now it was Yamato's turn to be confused.

"Did I say something?" she asked.

Dr. Cain responded. "Yes you did. Though I wouldn't say it's entirely your fault."

Yamato looked down at the floor guiltily.

"Will he be alright?, she inquired.

"He'll be back to normal soon." proclaimed Dr. Cain. "I've heard that this happens to UNSC officers from time to time. The stress gets to their heads, something unexpected happens, then *poof* they just go nuts for a little while."

Right as he said this, the banging stopped.

Lasky spoke up, a dark bruise forming on his forehead. "That was... very unprofessional. I'm sorry you had to see that."

He straightened his shirt and patted down his tousled hair.

"Now that that's out of my system, I have a few more questions for you. This time I **promise** to not freak out. You mentioned that these erm... "shipgirls" fought to protect humanity against abyssals. So what exactly are abyssals?"

Yamato answered. "Abyssals are the manifestation of mankind's evil and corruption that have risen out of the ocean depths to wreak havoc. They take the forms of dark humanoids, often clad in tentacles, sharp teeth, and other bits of assorted nastiness."

She said those words as if they were the most normal and uninteresting words ever spoken.

The banging started up again. Captain Lasky was bad at keeping promises.

POV Yamato:

For what felt like the hundredth time in the span of two days, Yamato was horribly confused. Upon mentioning shipgirls and abyssals, the man who identified himself as Lasky summarily went full Kongou. In fact, Yamato didn't think that even the craziness of the Kongou sisters did Lasky's freak-out justice. Just as Yamato felt a bit of laughter bubble up within her, it was quickly shut down by the realization that she might never actually see the wacky battleship sisters ever again.

She really missed her fellow Kanmasu.

This in turn, prompted Yamato to speak up. "I've answered all of you questions. I think it's my turn."

Once the strange man had stopped slamming his head against the window he grumbled, "very well, ask anything you want and I'll answer, provided that the answer isn't classified".

"Where am I", inquired Yamato, hoping desperately that he would answer somewhere close to home.

The man responded. "We're on the UNSC Infinity currently in orbit around shield world Requiem."

Yamato was a bit flustered. What he had said made no sense at all. This did not at all resemble the answer that she was hoping for. However she didn't lose hope. Maybe those were just code words that he was saying.

"Is that some kind of lingo specific to your organization", asked Yamato.

"No" replied Lasky. "As far as answers go, they don't get much more straightforward than that."

Suddenly, a realization came to Yamato's head as she put everything that she had observed together. The "zero gravity warning stickers" that she glimpsed, the gentle rumble of what Yamato once thought belonged to machinery, but now realized were actually engines, the bulky pressurized suit that occupied a corner of the metal room, they all pointed to one thing. That was impossible though. All space travel missions had halted once the abyssals attacked, and no nation could devote the resources needed for any kind of rocket launch.

Yamato feared what the answer to her next question would be, but she had to ask anyways.

"Captain Lasky, are we in space?"

Lasky sighed. Then after a pause he answered. "Yes"

Yamato took a moment to let out a subtle squeaking noise before passing out cold on the floor.

 _Authors note: So I felt like this story needed a bit of Kancolle style humor. Lasky may be a bit out of character with his uh... "breakdown", but the image of "never loses his cool" Lasky repeatedly whacking his head against the wall was frankly way too good to pass up._

 _On a side note, if anybody could make/vouch a post about this fic on the TVtropes Kancolle Fanfic rec page, that would be greatly appreciated._


	7. A Dark Past

1530 Hours, June 15, 2558 / UNSC Infinity, in orbit around Forerunner shield world Requiem

Lasky POV:

The self-proclaimed human embodiment of the battleship Yamato had just passed out upon realizing that she was in space. Great. This was just the thing that Lasky needed to top off his rather awful and traumatic week.

Lasky had to explain to the heavy equipment transportation team why he needed their services to transport an multi-ton unconscious woman up to the observation room. That hadn't been particularly easy.

His direct orders could keep them from talking, but he knew that they would only last so long before someone would let something slip to a fellow marine. Lasky sighed. Keeping this situation under wraps was quite the job.

From outside the Infinity's interrogation/observation room Lasky looked through the one-way glass and saw that Yamato had once again been chained down and was now sitting opposite the Infinity's best interrogation specialist. Lasky had ordered him to "go easy" on her and just cross-check her story due to the fact that she wasn't exactly an enemy.

Lasky turned to Dr. Cain, who seemed to be at a loss for words. He probably would have been too, but all of the insanity that he had been through in the past few days had made him reach a mental tipping point. As such, he had effectively been numbed from showing any kind of shock or astonishment, at least for the time being.

"Hey Cain, should we unchain her now? I don't think she means us any harm, and frankly, if what she said hadn't almost caused me to put a forehead sized dent in the window, I'd feel sorry for her. It sounds like she's a long ways from home, wherever that may be."

Cain piped up. "Not to be disrespectful sir, but hasn't it occurred to you that perhaps… she's lying and has made everything up? She sounds like she's telling the truth, but everything she has said so far is just too far-fetched to be possibly true. I mean, we have direct instantaneous slipspace communications with Earth. If any "abyssals" had attacked while we were exploring Requiem, we would have been the first ones to hear it as the UNSC's most powerful combat/exploration vessel."

Lasky replied. "Cain, I didn't get to be captain for nothing. This entire time I've had our AI Roland monitoring through high definition cameras every blink, twitch, and involuntary movement that our rather exotic guest has made. He's been cross referencing them to studies done on human lying behavior that detail when a person is or isn't telling the truth. Her results match up _perfectly_ with someone who is telling the exact truth, word for word. The system couldn't even detect the presence of any attempt to mislead or misinform us. Roland has been uploading all of this information real-time to my neural uplink and that, my good man Cain, is why I was freaking out. The implications of this are very scary indeed. Either all of the utter insanity she just spouted is true, or she simply believes all it to be true."

"How so?" Asked Cain, "maybe she's just crazy and has hallucinations"

"No" replied Lasky. "When undergoing the same truth analysis scan that Yamato received, people with hallucinations often display signs of self doubt, as if they themselves weren't sure exactly what they saw. Roland's analysis confirms that there isn't a shred of doubt within Yamato's mind about what she has experienced. Since no record exists, or has ever recorded to exist, even within forerunner technology catalogues of a device capable of perfectly replacing one's memories with something fabricated, that leaves only one option."

Cain opened his eyes wide with disbelief. "Captain, you can't possibly be suggesting that Earth has been overrun by these "abyssals?"

"Well given how her first appearance was in close proximity to what we now know is some kind of Forerunner space-time dilation machine, I have come to the logical conclusion that she simply _isn't from our plane of existence._ In other words, the Earth that she's referencing, and the Earth that we know are not the same planet. Furthermore, the time-dilation machine seems to have burned itself out on what we predict was its first and only activation. It seems as though the machine's sole purpose was to bring her here."

Looking through the observation window, Lasky saw the interrogation specialist stand up from his chair and walk out of the room.

"Looks like he's done", remarked Lasky. "the report should be here any second now."

Sighing, Lasky leaned back on the wall, and unbeknownst to him, depressed a small red button that had been newly mounted. Lasky was a careful man, but several days with minimal or no sleep, along with the weight of rather shocking information revealed to him by a rather mysterious human battleship had made him blissfully unaware of the minutiae of his surroundings.

Cain was stunned. "You know if you weren't the captain, I'd order the nearest guard to hold you down while I strapped you into a straightjacket. However, as it stands, I do actually believe you. There's just simply too much evidence, from her warship physiology to the fact that she passed every lie test that the UNSC has to offer. There's a problem though. Once ONI figures out what's been going on here, our human battleship is going to be in grave danger. They will stop at nothing to figure out what makes her tick. Even if it means killing her. You know as well as I do how ruthless those Section 3 bastards are. Remember the Spartan IIs? They were just children…. Even though they ended up saving humanity from that conglomerate of genocidal aliens that burned worlds and slaughtered billions, it's still not right. Kind of ironic how the saviors of mankind were birthed from our greatest moral crimes, don't you think"

As if on cue, a notification popped up on Lasky's holopad. It read:

 _Condensed Interrogation Report on subject "Yamato"_

 _The subject's story, though bizarre, is believable. The subject's body language indicates the she is telling the truth. Her story regarding her own status as a "shipgirl", as well as the existence of other such "shipgirls", and "abyssals" was extensively cross examined. To my surprise, there were no inconsistencies or contradictions. My conclusion here is that however unlikely her story, all the evidence points it toward being the truth._

 _To end this report, I shall quote the great Sherlock Holmes of late 19th century literature: "_ when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, _however improbable_ , must be the truth"

Lasky handed over his holopad to Cain and showed him the interrogation results.

"Just more evidence that my pervious theory is correct" Said Lasky, still unconsciously leaning on the bright red button.

"From what I heard from her, these "shipgirls" are more like the Spartans IIs than any Spartan IV can claim to be. All she's known her whole life is fighting, selflessly dedicating her entire existence for the survival of mankind. She's a goddamn hero, and I won't let those ONI spooks get to her if the last thing I do!"

Over the sound of blood rushing to his head, Lasky noticed a small whimpering, which he noted was odd because the one-way window separating the observation room and interrogation room should have been soundproof. He look through the window to see that Yamato looked rather uncomfortable. Then as he observed her face, he saw bits of moisture gather around her eyes. She was crying, but why? The realization hit Lasky like a MAC round. He looked around and saw with horror that his left shoulder was firmly depressing a red button labeled "transmit sound to interrogation room".

Oh shit.

Yamato POV:

She had heard everything. From humanity's almost-extinction at the hands of aliens to the fact that she was possibly destined to die not in battle, but under the cold eyes of scientists pulling her apart to see how she worked, to…. whatever horrible things they ended up doing to those children. She could infer. It was too much.

Her body shuddered as tears streamed down her cheeks.

A jumble of incoherent thoughts cluttered her mind before a clear voice rang through.

"Well the cat's out of the bag now. You know what, I'd rather you know the whole truth rather than the bits and pieces that you just unfortunately overheard."

The other man interjected. "Have you gone mad Lasky? We don't even know if she's on our side!"

The original voice cut him off. "Cain, all of what I'm about to tell her is basically public information. Remember, the Spartan II project was declassified after the war, much to the dismay of ONI and the outrage of the public. She'll find out one way or another, and I'd prefer if she heard it from us. That way nobody's bending any facts"

Lasky continued.

"Look, I know what you've just heard is… shocking to say the least, but please try and understand. Humanity, at least this version of humanity, has gained the ability to travel between the stars. All was well as we colonized new worlds and expanded our reaches. Then disaster stuck. First, an insurrection among our own people arose and threatened war. Then, a covenant of alien races decreed us an affront to their religion and began burning our worlds. In this reality as well as your own, humanity has struggled against great foes and it has ultimately won because of the actions of heroes like yourself. I'm ashamed to say this, but what you heard about the children was true. We were against an unstoppable alien onslaught, and we were losing badly. If humanity was to survive, it needed heroes. The organization that I work for, the UNSC, kidnapped genetically ideal candidates at the mere age of 6 or 7, trained them to be killers, painfully modified their bodies, and forced them to fight. I almost consider your version of humanity "lucky". Their heroes came to them from humanity's fighting spirit.

We on the other hand, had to become monsters to create our heroes."

Lasky continued.

"I don't know why you're here, how you're here, or how you can get back to the existence in which you belong, but I'm willing to put my neck on the chopping block in order to figure it out. If I pull some strings with an old buddy of mine working in intelligence, I can get you a civilian ID, a monthly check of a substantial amount of credits, and a nice urban residence on Eridianus III. That will put you out of harm's way from ONI while the research team studies the time-dilation device and possibly reactivates it to send you back. Think of it as repentance for my involvement with the Spartan project"

Yamato sniffled, thought about his offer, then responded.

"No"

"What", exclaimed Lasky

Yamato repeated herself. "No. My job is to defend all of humanity, whether it be in one realm of existence or another. Even though you claim that the war is over, not all is well. I can tell that this is a vessel of war, not peacetime. If humans still have to put themselves in harms way, then my job is not done."

There was a brief pause.

"What are you getting at?", asked Lasky

Yamato directed her mesmerising ruby eyes right at Lasky and stated

" I, Yamato, wish to fight for the UNSC."

 _Author's note: The feels... I apologize if this was a too much of a downer. Yamato was bound to find out about the dark past of Halo humanity sooner or later. Also, the emotional trauma of being separated from her fellow Kanmasu manifested itself a bit in this chapter. The next few chapters will be a bit more upbeat, so stay tuned even if this one wasn't really your cup of tea._


	8. First Blood

Lasky POV:

Lasky had thought for quite a while about what Yamato had said. In the end, he decided to comply with her request to serve with the UNSC until a way to send her home could be found. At first he had thought it was utter madness. If Yamato was seen blazing away with her cannons on the open battlefield, word of it would quickly get to ONI. For now, only himself, Cain, and a handful of crew that had sworn themselves to secrecy knew about Yamato. The rumor about Yamato that had spread around the ship earlier had luckily run out of steam and fallen out of attention, thanks in part to the Department of Mental Health's warning to psychologically evaluate any marine who was heard repeating the story.

Lasky was in between a rock and a hard place. He had to comply with Yamato's requests before she ran off on her own, made too much noise, and attracted ONI's attention. So how could Lasky keep Yamato's true identity a secret while at the same time fulfilling her desire to fight? For a time, Lasky thought that simply convincing Yamato to accept a civilian position was the best course of action. However, he quickly figured out that such a plan wouldn't work. By the way that Yamato had requested her conscription into the UNSC, Lasky could tell that her decision couldn't be swayed. Besides, any mishaps that might occur with regards to a human-sized battleship would be much better contained aboard the Infinity then say, in an urban setting. Lasky pictured Yamato stepping onto an elevator on the top floor of a skyscraper and snapping its support cables with her multi-ton weight. He then pictured her crossing a busy street without looking, getting hit by an 18 wheeler, and then standing among the flaming steel carnage of what had once been a truck wondering what the heck just happened. Yes, it would be better to keep her far away from the squishy civilians and their fragile infrastructure.

Furthermore, Lasky couldn't keep her chained down forever, and once the chains were off there wasn't much anybody could do to stop her from doing what she wanted. Lasky knew that the interior bulkheads of the Infinity were tough, but they probably weren't designed to stop a battleship from charging through them.

So convincing Yamato to lay low was out of the question.

In a sudden flash of genius, Lasky realized what he needed to do. Yamato could moonlight as Spartan. The Spartans were superhumans in it of themselves, so accounts of Yamato's extraordinary combat feats wouldn't attract any undue attention. Of course anybody that saw her fight first-hand would know that she was simply not human, so she would have to sent on covert ops or high secrecy kinds of missions. "Battleship" doesn't exactly scream "stealthy", but with the proper training and gear, Yamato could easily follow a Spartan team behind enemy lines and cover them if things got ugly. In fact, she might even be invaluable on a high-risk hostage rescue mission, as her biological armor would allow her to body-block shots aimed at a VIP. She would have to change her outfit, and some explanations would have to be made to about her combat equipment to the mission support staff, but it could feasibly be done. Of course the Spartans themselves would have to swear secrecy, but Lasky was sure that they were loyal to him, and not ONI. The only remaining problem was to what Spartan team she would be assigned to. Despite the fact that it wasn't really Yamato's fault, Lasky doubted that any of the Spartan IVs would be willing to work with the person er… battleship that put both Hoya and Palmer in the ICU. Even besides that, Spartans in a team need to form incredibly close bonds with each other in order to be effective. Lasky was sure that Yamato was just too fundamentally different from any of the Spartan IVs for that to happen.

That left only one option, the last remaining Spartan II, The Master Chief.

Thinking about it more carefully, Lasky noted that the Chief and Yamato had more in common than he had ever thought possible. While one was a battleship, and the other a bio-engineered super soldier, they had both only known combat for all their lives. Both were weapons of war, and their primary purpose was to protect humanity over anything else. As such, both of them should have ended up as stone-cold killers, more killing machines than rational, sentient beings. While Master Chief certainly tried his best to play the part of a terminator robot, Lasky knew that his cold demeanor was a facade that had hardened with the loss of his squadmates, and more recently, his loss of Cortana. Lasky realized that the Chief was suffering. He knew that Cortana had been his only companion for almost the last decade in combat. That AI had meant the world to him, and now she was gone. Yamato, according to her accounts of the existance that she lived in, had suffered similar losses to the abyssals, watched as her companions were cut down by shellfire. Perhaps some time with someone he could actually relate to could actually do the Chief some good. Of course there could be complications with such a team of rather unpredictable and combat-scarred individuals, but Lasky decided it was worth a shot.

Yamato POV:

Yamato was in a small empty room with no windows. A single light hung from the ceiling and illuminated the plain walls of where Lasky had told her to stay. Yamato sighed. At least they had gotten rid of the chains.

Suddenly, Yamato heard a beeping noise and a click. Then the thick metal door of the room swung inwards and Lasky walked in.

He spoke to her in a neutral tone that belied his nervousness.

"Well I've made up my mind. You can join. However, there are a few conditions. First, nobody outside of your combat partner and your mission support team can find out what you truly are. As such, you are expected to act like a normal human while aboard the general quarters of the Infinity."

"Second, you are to follow orders from me and nobody else, even if they outrank me. What I'm doing is off the record, and if anybody finds out, both you and I will really wish that we had never met."

"Third, do not, under any circumstances, respond to any advances made by the knucklehead grunts aboard this ship. You will want to hurt them. Please don't. If you send a horny corporal flying through a Titanium-A bulkhead, ONI will hear about it."

"That is all for now"

Yamato memorized what Lasky had told her before saying "I understand, Lasky"

"You will address me as sir" snapped Lasky. "Furthermore, this is a military ship, and as such, I expect you to act like a UNSC soldier!"

"I understand, sir!" replied Yamato with gusto, in a voice a few octaves lower than she normally spoke in.

Yamato quickly recalled a few war American war movies that Kongou had made her watch. In all of them, when addressing someone of higher rank, the soldiers had done a funky hand-raising move that Kongou had later explained was a salute. In essence, it was a show of respect and obedience that was common in Western militaries.

Yamato awkwardly raised her hand into a salute while Lasky watched. As Yamato did this, she noticed a small smile on Lasky's otherwise neutral face, as if he were trying to hold back laughter.

Her salute hadn't been that bad had it?

Lasky POV:

He was dying. It took years of military discipline not to break out into guffaws. To see a young woman who also happened to be a battleship try and act like a hardened foot soldier straight out of a war movie was frankly the cutest thing that Lasky had ever seen. Cute. That was a word he hadn't used or thought of in a long time. With all of the killing and explosions that he was usually involved in, Lasky didn't have time for "cute". As such, he knew that what he just saw would stay in his memory for a long, long time. Lasky allowed himself to smile a little.

"Alright Yamato, follow me down the hallway".

"Yes Sir!" she said. Lasky could tell that she was still doing her best to impersonate the average war movie soldier. At least she was trying.

As Lasky walked casually down the hallway, Yamato did the stereotypical soldier walk, with her arms swinging and her feet stomping. Yamato's weight caused her rhythmic marching to make an enormous banging noises that echoed around the crowded hallways of the infinity. People began to stare.

Lasky pulled Yamato to the side

"You know what Yamato, I have a better idea. Throw what I said about acting like a soldier out the window. I was trying to make sure that you didn't attract attention, but I realize now that it's having the opposite effect. Just act like you do around your home naval base"

"th-thank you Lasky", replied Yamato nervously. "I don't think I was doing it right anyways."

Understatement of the century.

They began walking again, down one of Infinity's long corridors. Suddenly, the main lights went out and the emergency light switched on, casting an eerie glow within the unpopulated hallway.

Yamato piped up. "Lasky, is this supposed to happen?"

"No", replied Lasky.

Lasky looked around and saw with horror that someone, or something had slashed the main power conduit that ran along the wall. He looked closely and saw that the slash mark was glowing red hot. That could only mean one thing...

Lasky saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Then he heard a sizzle as a hulking form materialized before his very eyes. It was an elite!

How had it gotten on the ship? That didn't matter for now. What did matter was that Lasky was about to become an extra-toasty shish kebab courtesy of the energy sword grasped firmly within the elite's muscular right hand. It lunged. Lasky screamed.

Yamato POV:

Yamato saw a warping of air, not unlike what she had seen when Spartan Palmer had attacked her with a sniper rifle. She knew that something was there.

Suddenly, a monstrous form appeared from thin air. It was massive, at least 7 or 8 feet tall and it held a glowing blade in its hand that illuminated its quad-segmented mouth. From what Lasky had told her about the covenant, Yamato deduced that it was a "Sanghelli", more commonly known as an elite. She thought Lasky had said that the elites and the humans were now on peaceful terms, but this one looked like its intent was to kill. Maybe this was the Storm Covenant that Lasky had mentioned. Suddenly, it leapt towards Lasky, sword raised high in the air for a sideways slash that Yamato knew would cut him in two.

Without hesitation or concern for her own safety, Yamato leapt into the path of the blade a moment before it could hit Lasky. The lance of energy impacted Yamato's midriff, and she could feel the intense heat that comprised the elite's weapon begin to carve away at her skin.

Yamato's armor held the white-hot blade at bay for just a moment before it began to fail. However, that split-second was enough time for Yamato to knock the weapon out of the elite's grasp with an open palmed strike from her right hand. Not giving the elite chance to recover from the shock of someone body blocking an energy sword and living, Yamato followed up with a swift kick aimed at the Elite's chest. That would have been the end of it, except the kick never connected. The Elite jumped back with surprising agility for a being of its size and pulled out a small purple device. It leveled the device at Yamato, and that's when she knew that she was in trouble.

The device flashed, and 2 bolts of bright blue energy impacted Yamato on the neck and shoulder. She felt her skin become warm, then seconds later, become unbearably hot. She juked to the left, trying to avoid more shots, but one clipped her in the kneecap. She kept going, but moments later another 3 bolts hit her in the same spot. Yamato shrieked with pain as her skin armor was finally compromised by the intense heat of covenant plasma. She fell to the ground, flailing. With a triumphant roar, the Elite readjusted his aim to line up with Yamato's head. It had taken thousands of kilograms of high explosive bombs and torpedoes delivered by over 300 aircraft to bring her down the first time. Was Yamato about to die an undignified death at the hands of a single enemy soldier?

Without warning, a loud crack resonated through the dim hallway. Then, a split second later, the Elite's head was gone. Its decapitated form slumped to the ground. What had just happened?

Master Chief POV:

Master Chief John-117 was prepared for the worst. That was what had kept him alive for the past 40 years. When he heard that the power had mysteriously gone out in a rarely traveled corridor of the Infinity, he had connected it to the sighting of what a galley cook had claimed to be a ghost. This kind of thing had happened before. There was a camouflage elite aboard the Infinity, and it was Chief's job to stop it before anyone had to die.

It didn't matter that nobody believed him. It didn't matter that the intermediate officers had treated him like a headcase, stating that he was suffering from delusions, paranoia, and PTSD. It was his duty to protect humanity, and he would do as such, even if it meant stealing an SRS-99 rifle from the armory and trespassing into what was a restricted section of the ship.

As the Chief rounded the final corner to the powerless section of the ship, he caught the faint glow of plasma. Was he too late? John quickly stopped running and got into a prone position. He looked through the sniper rifle's powerful scope and saw something that would never forget. An Elite jumped at Lasky, and just as The Chief was about to take the shot, a woman jumped in front of Lasky and took the blade to her side. He expected her to drop dead, but to his surprise she kept fighting even after taking several plasma bolts.

Just how tough was she?

Eventually, the volume of fire caused her to fall to the ground, and with the Elite prematurely celebrating its victory, he took his shot. The Chief doesn't miss.

Lasky POV:

He was shaking. That was the closest he had ever come to death. Speaking of which…

"Yamato!" Lasky yelled, his features etched with concern.

To his great relief, Yamato managed to stumble to her feet.

"How bad are you hurt?", asked Lasky. He was panicking already. If she needed medical attention, there wasn't a single person on the Infinity that was medically trained to operate on a battleship.

Yamato grimaced a bit, then said "I'll be OK. The hits to my neck and shoulder are of no concern. They heated my armor up quite a bit, but I'm a battleship. I can take some heat. The same applies to the energy sword hit on my torso, though I may add that if it was in contact with me for a few seconds longer, it would have broken through my skin. My knee isn't in great shape though. I believe I was hit in the exact same spot 4 times in a short amount of time, which was enough to breach my armor. Those weapons are very nasty. My armor can deflect impacts from armor piercing shells weighing more than 500 kilograms. To have it be breached by a handheld weapon is… humbling to say the least. If only I had my combat gear. That fight would have been over in an instant."

Lasky looked at her injury closer. It was blackened, and the skin around the wound was cracked and peeling away. He saw bits of flash-boiled blood. Lasky could tell that it really hurt, but Yamato either had incredible pain tolerance, or was hiding it really well. Maybe both.

"Don't worry Lasky", said Yamato. "It will heal on my own, but a wound of this magnitude requires at least a day or two. Until then, I will walk with a slight limp. I hope that's OK"

Lasky replied. "I'm just glad you aren't seriously hurt. I mean, you are a battleship, but I still had my doubts about how well you would fare against plasma"

A man holding a large weapon approached the two of them.

"Who is that? Is he the one who saved us?", asked Yamato

Lasky answered her questions. "Yamato, I'd like you to meet The Chief"


	9. Invasion

POV Yamato:

Yamato felt an intense burning sensation on her right kneecap. While she didn't feel anything out of the ordinary where the other plasma bolts and the sword had hit her, Yamato's leg wound was causing her quite a great deal of discomfort.

With difficulty, Yamato pushed thoughts of her hurting knee out of her mind and began to size up the man that Lasky had identified as "The Master Chief". Apparently, he was the one who had killed the stealth elite before things could get too ugly. He was incredibly large and muscular for a human, standing an entire head over the reasonably tall Captain Lasky. His skin was unnaturally pale, as if he had avoided sunlight for his entire life like a vampire. Yamato looked into his dark eyes, and at first they seemed cold, unreadable even. looking closer, she saw sadness. No, that wasn't quite right. She saw a core of loneliness and isolation wrapped in a layer of deep personal loss and sacrifice. This was a man that had given everything for the greater good, and had received nothing in return. This was a man who had lived a hard and unforgiving life.

Lasky's voice snapped Yamato out of her thoughts.

"So why don't you two introduce yourselves?"

She wasn't quite sure why, but this man made her nervous. Not knowing anything to better to say, Yamato stuttered out "h-hi, I'm Yamato. Uh... th-thanks for saving me back there."

The man didn't respond, but instead chose to stare blankly at her. His face read no emotion. An awkward silence hung over the dimly lit corridor.

This man was colder than Secretary ship Nagato on a bad day….

Master Chief POV:

The Chief had never been a man of many words. His interactions with anybody outside a select few Spartan IIs and a particular, now-deceased Sergeant usually composed of a phrase such as "yes sir", or "understood", followed by a nod or shrug. The Chief had never really gotten comfortable interacting with other humans, no thanks in part to the horrors of war that had become a daily occurrence to him. This wasn't helped by the fact that his only true companion for the past decade of nonstop fighting had sacrificed herself to save him from a fanatical alien demi-god. After the Didact's demise, The Chief had been lauded as a hero. Some Earth-based electronic gaming companies had even asked him to star in a video game series that centered around his life as a Spartan II. They stated that his tacit manner and social awkwardness would make him "relatable" to their target audience of energy drink chugging 10 year olds. The Chief had summarily turned down these offers, and suggested that they not attempt to glorify war. All of that was besides the point however. What wasn't beside the point was that a young woman that had somehow taken an energy sword slash and several MJOLNIR-melting plasma bolts with nothing more than a minor flesh wound was introducing herself to him. The Chief froze. He had punched apart scarab assault walkers from the inside, he had killed more jackals than the logistics team could count, he had even dived out of a UNSC cruiser to give the covenant back their bomb, but in that instant, he had no idea how to respond.

A long silence crept over both of them.

Lasky POV:

Why did Chief always have to be so antisocial? Well, he knew that answer, but he still subtly shook his head with disapproval. Getting these two to work together as a team wouldn't be an easy task.

Yamato POV:

After what seemed like eons, The man known as the Master Chief finally spoke up, looking down at the metal floor rather than making eye contact.

"No need to thank me. I was just doing my job"

This was more awkward than that one time that Mutsu had caught Nagato cuddling a squirrel in the bathhouse. Though in this case, Yamato seriously doubted that the Chief had a "Nagamon" side which he had yet to reveal.

Suddenly, an orange flash of light appeared behind The Chief, and he spun around just in time for a glowing blade to saw his rifle in half. A second blade would have ran him through, but Yamato lunged in between the two combatants and placed her heavily armored forearm to block the strike. A shower of crimson sparks enveloped Yamato as she felt a dull impact roll off her left arm. Not making the same mistake that landed her in trouble with the elite, Yamato grabbed the mysterious attacker's sword arm and used it to throw the being onto the floor. Yamato then threw herself on top of it, left should first, and was satisfied as it was squished under her immense weight. The remains of the attacker dissolved into glowing ashes and into nothingness. Yamato picked herself off the floor before the Chief broke the silence.

"You saved me", stated the Chief

"Consider it repayment", replied Yamato with a bit of cheekiness

Yamato thought she saw the beginnings of a smile form on the Chief's grizzled face.

She took a moment to gauge her injuries. As far as she could tell, she hadn't sustained any wounds in her battle with the mysterious glowing attacker. Speaking of which…

"Lasky what was that thing" asked Yamato

"A Promethean. I can explain in detail later but in short, they are robotic warriors of forerunner origin that wield hard-light weaponry. How one was able to teleport onto the ship is anyone's guess. I'm fairly sure that it's appearance is connected to our headless friend back there."

As he said this, Lasky jerked his hand toward the decapitated elite.

Unexpectedly, the Chief spoke up in a rather loud voice.

"Lasky, what is she?"

Master Chief POV:

At first, Chief thought that the woman had been using some kind of experimental energy shielding device to protect her from the elite's plasma weaponry. However, he had just seen her block a Promethean Knight's hardlight blade with her arm, and watching closely, the Chief didn't see the crackle of an energy shield, but rather saw the blade make direct contact with her skin and deflect off of it with a shower of sparks like it had just struck incredibly tough armor. Also, her strength and body weight were both immense. John doubted that even a fully armored Spartan could crush a Promethean with a body slam like that.

Yamato opened her mouth to answer his question, but Lasky cut her off.

"Chief, it's really hard to explain, but she's effectively the battleship Yamato condensed down to the size of a human. That means her weapons, armor, strength, etc. are all equivalent to a that of a 72,000 ton war machine. I'd love to tell you more about it in detail, but we have more pressing matters on our hands. According to my neural uplink, reports of Promethean and Storm Covenant boardings are breaking out all over Infinity. Plus, we've lost contact with the bridge. If we are to regain control of Infinity, that's the first place we should head.

The Chief hadn't expected that answer. A human battleship... he would have to give some more thought later, but Lasky was right. There were definitely bigger problems that needed to be dealt with first, and Chief didn't really care what she was, as long as she could fight. As for Lasky's plan, he approved. A bit vague, as far as infiltration plans went, but Chief thought it was a reasonable course of action given their lack of information about what was going on. There was just one problem.

"If you haven't noticed, I don't have my armor, and my sniper rifle is now in two pieces. While battleship-girl over here can take hits just fine without MJOLNIR, I for one would like an energy shield firmly between me and any speeding hard light projectiles trying to blow holes in my chest. I'm also going to need a weapon."

Lasky grinned.

"Well funny you should ask that. You two follow me."

After a few minutes of walking quietly along the darkened hallways, the Chief, Lasky, and Yamato reached a small unmarked sliding door.

Lasky pulled a small card from his pocket, gave it a swipe, and slid the door open.

With pride in his voice, Lasky announced,

"This, Ladies, Gentlemen, and Anthropomorphic Battleships, is one of a few emergency armories hidden around the Infinity. They are only to be used under extremely dire circumstances, of which I believe our current situation definitely qualifies for."

The Chief walked in the room. John didn't think the word "room" did this space any justice. It was practically a small hangar! Rows of weapons lined the walls and various high explosive devices shined in artificial glare of the overhead lamps. Suddenly, a green glint caught his eye. He turned to get a better look. John almost gasped as he realized what he was seeing. In the back corner of the room, lying in a ready-to go position within automated equipping devices, lay two brand new suits of MJOLNIR GEN 2 powered assault armor.

Things just got interesting.


	10. Locked and Loaded

Lasky POV:

Lasky let out a whistle of appreciation as he took in his surroundings. He had heard during his training that the emergency armories of UNSC ships held some pretty heavy ordnance, but he had never expected anything like what lay before him right now. The walls were lined with gun racks carrying anything from the small-but-deadly M7/Caseless SMG to heavy hitters like the prototype ARC-920 Railgun. Lasky even saw a Misriah armory M6 Grindell Spartan Laser mounted atop a well-lit pedestal like a prized trophy possession. Mountains of ammunition crates were scattered across the floor. Yeah, Lasky really couldn't have asked for more.

Lasky gestured to Yamato and The Chief.

"Alright you two. Pick out your weapons and prepare to engage. Lets drive these Covvie bastards off our ship!"

Yamato blinked.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but I only know how to fight with my combat equipment"

Oh crap. He had forgotten that her cannons were her primary means of doing combat.

Lasky thought for a while, then spoke.

"Well your cannons are currently locked up and are under study in the advanced weapons research headquarters. Unfortunately, that location is a bit out of reach for us considering the massive hordes of Covenant and Prometheans that are likely crawling around the ship. Regardless, I wouldn't want battleship shells flying around the Infinity and busting airlocks.

"Chief, see to it that Yamato is informed on how to operate and fire a USNC weapon. Explain to her the purpose and effects of each weapon, and let her choose one that fits her fighting style"

Lasky knew that Yamato's combat prowess would be significantly decreased without her normal weaponry, further compounded by the fact that she seemed unfamiliar in how to operate a standard firearm. However, even without weaponry, she did pack a mean punch…

Yamato POV:

Yamato cradled in her arms what The Chief had told her was an "MA5C Assault rifle". It felt clumsy and awkward in her hands, and she couldn't quite figure out how to hold it in the correct way. She attempted to load the weapon, but she fumbled the magazine and it clattered against the floor.

"Hey Chief, I do not think this one is right for me"

The Chief shrugged before taking the assault rifle, putting it back on the rack, and handing her another gun.

This one was sleeker than the last one, and it had some sort of pump that ran the length of the barrel. She tried to work the pump, but it was stuck fast. She tried again, harder this time, and with a wrenching of metal, tore the pump clean off the weapon. Oops.

"Uhh… I don't think this one suits me well either" said Yamato as she innocently handed the 2 pieces of what had been a combat shotgun back to the Chief, who looked equal parts astonished and annoyed.

The Chief went on to search for another weapon. Yamato sat on an ammunition crate, legs crossed, and waited.

Suddenly, something caught her eye.

"Hey Chief, what's that?"

The Master Chief stopped rummaging through various weapons cases to turn around and look where Yamato was pointing.

Master Chief POV:

Master Chief grumbled as he tried to find a weapon that Yamato could actually use. He still couldn't believe that she had somehow managed to rip a perfectly good M90 CAWS assault shotgun in half. Now, she was pointing at some weapon that was lying half-buried in other bits of assorted ordnance. Apparently, it had caught her attention. It looked like a Battle Rifle, but it was far too large and bulky. A series of thick translucent coils ran its way up the barrel of the strange weapon, giving it the appearance of a gatling gun.

He took a good look at the weapon, and after half of second of staring blankly at it, realized just what it was. The Chief blinked a few times to make sure what he was seeing was actually real, then tacitly announced

"A Type 94..."

Lasky stopped jamming cartridges of 7.62mm ammunition into the Battle Rifle magazines located on his combat belt before replying

"Anything you want to tell us Chief?" Asked Lasky

"It's an EMR, which stands for Electro-Magnetic Rifle. It was an early attempt to make a handheld Gauss weapon during the Human-Covenant war era.

The idea was that its massive power consumption could be fed by a MJOLNIR suit's micro fusion reactor, and that it would become a kind of Spartan-only superweapon.

During firing tests it performed flawlessly. Unlike the current ARC-920 Railgun, the Type 94 could fire many rounds in quick succession, with its sustained firing rate being equivalent to that of a SAW. The rounds themselves are smaller than the ones fired by the current railgun, but they were fired at a much greater velocity. The small size of the projectiles also meant more shots per mag, which if I remember correctly hovered at around fifty.

Though the weapon was powerful enough to kill a fully shielded elite Zealot in just two shots, the power drain that it had on a MJOLNIR suit's reactors was incredibly high. A sustained burst from the weapon was enough to overload the reactor and cause the suit's shielding capacity to drop immensely. Furthermore, when the weapon was being fired, the suit's secondary functions such as its motion detector and external lights had to be turned off to conserve power. In other words, the weapon took so much power that the MJOLNIR's power pack couldn't power the weapon and the rest of the suit at the same time. The operator had to choose one or the other.

Lastly, the weapon had horrible overheating issues. Though the weapon itself wouldn't be damaged when it overheated, its user certainly could. Without a MJOLNIR suit's heat resistant gloves, the weapon can't even be fired at all by a normal human without severe burns to their hands. Even with MJOLNIR on, the longest that anybody has ever held onto a type 94 during continuous firing was 7 seconds. Even then, the suit's gloves were severely damaged by the heat, which we estimate peaks out around 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit."

"Chief, you certainly know a lot about that weapon", commented Lasky.

"If anyone should know about the Type 94, it's me" replied the Chief. "I was the biggest advocate among the Spartans for a weapon like this. I tried to convince Halsey to secure more funding for the project to work out the kinks, but Section 3 deemed such a weapon system far too expensive and impractical for further technological development. Thus, the project was canned."

POV Lasky:

Lasky was quite taken aback by the Chief's sudden willingness to talk. He had never heard the Chief say so many words in such a short span of time. Ever. Maybe all the Spartan needed was the company of a deadly weapon to break his hardened war-veteran shell of solitude.

POV Master Chief:

The Master Chief sighed. There was an incredibly powerful weapon just lying at his feet during a time of great need, but he couldn't use it. As long as it was as impractical and dangerous as it had always been, the Type 94 would never see combat. That's when Yamato spoke up.

"I want to give it a try. I am fairly certain that I can withstand the weapon's heat, and I really need something to replace my cannons"

"What about the energy constraints?" asked The Chief skeptically. "Just because you can take the heat doesn't mean that the other problems go away"

Lasky spoke up.

"Hey Chief, so theoretically, if someone didn't use the shielding or other functions of a MJOLNIR suit, the reactor would be able to sufficiently power the Type 94?"

"Yes, but I really don't see the point that you're trying to make here"

Lasky didn't say anything and grinned at the Chief, almost as if he was waiting for the Spartan to put two and two together.

That's when it dawned on The Chief. Yamato could use the 2nd MJOLNIR suit's fusion reactor to power her weapon.

The Chief looked at Yamato, then cocked his head toward the MJOLNIR suit, signaling her to get into it.

Yamato POV:

It didn't fit. Even with the help of a rather large machine, and the assistance of both the Master Chief and Captain Lasky, the suit of "MJOLNIR" or whatever they called it simply didn't fit. It had obviously designed for someone a lot beefier and more muscular than her, and as a result, most of the armor plates fit far too loosely around her slender form. She hung awkwardly in the air, suspended by 4 robotic arms attached around her limbs. Goodness, her last refit had been more comfortable than this...

"Lasky, I don't think this will work"

"Hold still Yamato," he replied. "With a bit of work, the armor-donning machine can actually account for small differences in body sizes between different occupants for the same suit. This particular set of MJOLNIR was actually designed for a universal occupant"

"Well when they designed this to be "universal", they probably did not have someone like me in mind. I'm just too small. Besides, you told me that since I don't have a "UNSC neural interface" surgically implanted in my spinal cord, I can't make use of most of the armor's functions. Even if my steel-reinforced bones and musculature could handle the suit's enhanced movement capability, I wouldn't be able to use it."

Lasky fiddled with the controls of the machine some more before finally giving up.

"Gah, you're right."

He began to power down the machine and lower Yamato down to the ground.

"Wait Lasky, I have a better idea if you're willing to permit it. Instead of scrapping the MJOLNIR idea entirely, I could keep the titanium metal-mesh undersuit. I actually kind of like it, despite it being more form-fitting than what I usually wear. Though the chest and thigh plates don't fit, I think I can still make use of the forearm, calf, boot, and shoulder pieces. The back plate which mounts the micro-fusion reactor fits me as well. I have no use for the helmet however, because the HUD doesn't seem to work without a neural interface."

"Also, If there's any way to drop the energy shields to only surround the fusion pack, then please make it happen."

Lasky replied. "Yeah, I can configure that kind of setup, but what about the rest of you? Don't you want a shield?"

"I think I'm tough enough without one. Besides, if I had a shield, I wouldn't have enough power to shoot my weapon."

Lasky pushed a few buttons and levers, and with a hiss, the machine locked the selected armor pieces onto Yamato's bodysuit before lowering her to the ground.

Master Chief POV:

Master Chief heard a satisfying click as his helmet locked onto his head. Getting into the other suit of MJOLNIR had been a breeze for him, as he had done it countless times before. He looked over at Yamato, who was just getting finished with her set.

She looked…. decidedly strange. The lack of many of MJOLNIR's plate components (including the all-important helmet) on her person, combined with the matte black skin-tight body suit made for a combat outfit that really showed off her form.

The Chief picked up the Type 94, which he had loaded up with special depleted uranium penetrator rounds, and handed it to Yamato.

"Hold still. I need to synchronize the weapon's energy transmission receptacle to your fusion reactor's output port"

This was all just a really fancy way of saying that he had to plug a wire hanging from the stock of the weapon into Yamato's armored backplate, but John relished these words as they meant his Type 94 was finally going to see some use.

"OK you should be good to go. I've also attached all the Type 94 ammo that I could find onto the magnetic clip holders located on your armor's hardpoints."

Yamato shouldered the weapon. Unlike with the assault rifle or the shotgun, there was no awkwardness in her movement as she practiced aiming down the Type 94's illuminated sights. She handled the weapon with a fluid grace, almost as if it had been built just for her.

The Chief watched as Lasky struggled to slap on a marine BDU and combat chestplate. Moments later, had had put on his combat gear and had grabbed a M932 DMR off the wall, along with several clips of ammo.

"All ready to go here", said Lasky as he cocked his rifle.

Yamato flipped the power switch on her backplate mounted fusion reactor, and a low hum resonated across the armory, accompanied by a dim glow as the Type 94 powered up.

"Ready to sortie!", announced Yamato.

"My motion detector is picking up multiple contacts right outside the door", said the Chief. "I think they know we're in here."

The Chief could hear a loud clunking noise coming from outside the door. He had hear that noise many times before.

"Enemy is preparing breaching charge!" warned the Chief.

The super soldier, the grizzled captain ,and the human battleship all stood with their weapons pointed at the doorway, waiting for their adversaries to make a move.

*BOOOOOOOOM!*

The armory's door was violently blown off its hinges by a powerful blast.

Then all hell broke loose.

 _Authors note:_

 _Bonus points for anyone able to guess the reference I'm making by having the "Type 94" be Yamato's weapon of choice. No googling._


	11. Battle Royale

1730 Hours, June 15, 2558 / UNSC Infinity, in orbit around Forerunner shield world Requiem

Yamato POV:

Yamato winced as a ragged piece of shrapnel glanced off her left cheek in a small spray of sparks.

"Is anyone hurt?", she shouted worriedly to Lasky and the Chief.

The Chief didn't reply, but gave a discreet thumbs up with his armored gauntlet.

"Yeah I'm fine as well" replied Lasky "I used a tactic meant for those of us who don't have the luxury of energy shields or battleship-armored skin. It's a little something called 'taking cover'. Ever heard of it?"

Snarky as always.

The door to the armory had been blown wide open, and through the thick smoke Yamato could see flashes of green and purple light. In the chaos, noise, and smoke of the firefight, Yamato couldn't make out a single target to shoot at. The same couldn't be said for the Chief and Lasky, who seemed used to these kinds of engagements and were merrily blasting away with their weapons.

"Yamato", called out Lasky from behind an empty ammo crate "Would real be nice if you started using that big gun of yours."

It wasn't her fault that she was being horribly disoriented by the chaotic and claustrophobic combat occurring within the small confines of one of Infinity's many hallways. She was meant for open sea battles, not CQC skirmishes!

Out of the haze, two magenta bolts caught Yamato in the side. They sliced through her black bodysuit with ease, but were stopped by her skin. One ricocheted off into the distance while the other actually managed to dig into her natural armor a small bit before violently detonating and spraying her face with micro shrapnel. Yamato closed her eyes just in time to feel the speeding shards of fragmented crystal bounce off her eyelids. That had been a close. They had been "needlers" if what she had remembered from Lasky's covenant weapons briefing was correct. They were pretty nasty weapons against unarmored and lightly armored targets according to the database. Luckily for her, Yamato was neither of those things.

Yamato lined up her Type 94 in the general direction of where the needler rounds had come from and squeezed of a quick burst. The weapon emitted a high pitched whine before spooling its capacitors and releasing three hypersonic penetrator rounds.

 _thwip-thwip-thwip… CRACK-CRACK-CRACK_

As the rounds left the barrel, they made absolutely no noise except a series of low thumps. Moments later however, massive earsplitting booms shook the battlefield. It was as if the rounds were moving at such a velocity that the air in front of them didn't have enough time to move out of the way before it was violently displaced.

Along with the horrendous sound, the velocity of the rounds caused the bullets to leave fine white vapor trails that clearly traced their path across the battlefield. The Type 94 slammed hard against Yamato's shoulder as the tremendous recoil forced the muzzle of the weapon upwards and to the left. Yamato looked intently towards where her weapon's vapor trail pointed, and was pleased to see that a spray of alien gore had been imprinted above the low-rolling smoke on the ceiling near where she was looking. Sure the shot had been more luck than anything else, but a kill was a kill.

 _One down, many to go,_ thought Yamato before taking aim at her next target.

Master Chief POV:

Three massive explosions rocked his eardrums. He thought that someone had set off more breaching charges! As it turned out, it was just the Type 94 doing its job. The Chief knew that Yamato was inexperienced with this kind of close-up in-your-face combat. At first, she seemed disoriented and confused more than anything else as she just stood there, not sure where to point her weapon. The Chief then watched a long string of needle rifle shots hit her to absolutely no effect. At least she was tough. That would keep her safe for the time being, despite her lack of combat sense. She could take care of herself.

The Chief decided that he didn't really have to worry about Yamato getting herself killed. Thus, he was all free to carry out his little plan.

He hand-signaled to Lasky that he needed suppressing fire before breaking cover and making a run at the main enemy force, magnum in hand.

Even though he couldn't physically see the enemy due to the smoky atmosphere, the Chief could make out at least thirty red dots on his motion sensor. That meant thirty more kills for him.

Lasky complied with his request, and stuck his battle rifle over the edge of the crate he was hiding behind to begin spraying rounds downrange in the general direction of the enemy.

The enemy fire died down a bit as a result, and Chief used this opportunity to sprint into the middle of the enemy formation and activate one of his armor abilities. A massive shock wave slammed across the battlefield, blowing the thick vision-obscuring smoke to the sides of the hallway and armory.

Though this move gave Yamato and Lasky a clear view of the Covenant forces, that meant they could now all see the Chief as well. Who just happened to be smack in the middle of all of them.

A brief silence punctuated the room as all combatants took in an unobstructed view of the now clear battlefield.

The silence was shattered by a cry of "Kill the Heretics!" before all thirty of the Storm Covenant fixed their weapons on where the Master Chief stood, and fired.


	12. Battle Royale (Part 2)

1800 Hours, June 15, 2558 / UNSC Infinity, in orbit around Forerunner shield world Requiem

Yamato POV

"Chief!" Yamato cried out before watching bright motes of green and blue light encompass his form. The bright light from the plasma fire blinded Yamato, and she was forced to shield her eyes for a moment. When the barrage of plasma fire finally died down, Yamato was relieved to see that the Chief was unharmed, protected by a glowing honeycombed shield that sprung out of a small conical generator on the metal ground.

 _Looks like the one called "Master Chief" is quite skilled in the art of war._

The crackle of her earpiece interrupted Yamato's thoughts.

"Shoot them", commanded The Chief gruffly.

"I will do as you wish" replied Yamato with a contrasting politeness.

Uncertain of herself, Yamato slowly reached down and turned the fire selector switch on her Type 94 from "burst fire" to "full auto". A bright red notification flashed on the weapon's holographic display, warning about severe overheating issues. She decided to ignore it.

After realizing that the Chief was quite safe behind his bubble shield the enemies quickly turned their attention to the next biggest threat in the room.

Yamato heard a series of clicks as thirty of the Covenant's deadliest handheld weapons were aimed squarely at her. Yamato replied by leveling her massive Type 94 barrel right at the lead elite. She spotted at least five other elites, flanked by groups of Jackals and Grunts. She was outnumbered and outgunned, but she would not run or retreat, for that wasn't the Japanese way.

A stillness seemed to hang in the air, a calm before the storm.

Both sides fired at the same time. Massive waves of pressurized air slammed into Yamato as the full deadly potential of the Type 94 was finally realized. At ungodly speeds, the depleted uranium shells of Yamato's weapon fragmented the atmosphere on their way to Alien skulls.

Although Yamato's relative inexperience with the weapon caused many of her shots to whiz by the enemy formation and embed themselves into the surrounding walls, the Type 94 spat out so many shots that some were bound to hit. And when it did hit, the result was simple devastation. Each round that impacted an enemy simply tore it in two, energy shield or not. The enemy forces were in disarray, caught off guard by the sheer power of Yamato's weapon.

Master Chief POV:

The Chief used Yamato's deadly distraction to deactivate his bubble shield and enter the fray himself. Running adjacent to the covenant forces so as to avoid receiving crossfire from Yamato, The Chief pulled out dual SMGs strapped from his thigh-plates and began pouring fire into the flank of the enemy forces. The Chief watched with grim satisfaction as his hail of fire shredded the backsides of a few unfortunate jackals that had their shields facing away from him and toward Yamato's gunfire. Not that it would have helped them much anyways.

The Covenant forces were simply cut down like so many blades of grass facing a mechanical thresher of destruction.

Some tried to run for cover. The Chief made sure that they didn't make it. Several blobs of return fire hit Yamato, burning through her MJOLNIR bodysuit and scorching her skin, but she didn't even flinch. Yamato stood, stalwart and unmoving like fortress, as she sent her enemies by way of hypersonic penetrator on a one way trip straight to hell.

On the battlefield, realized The Chief, Yamato was an entirely different being. Her quiet and timid demeanor gave way to a fiery fighting spirit, as if the souls of the sailors who once crewed her fueled her every movement. Her normally sad and wistful eyes burned with an unbridled ferocity that put even the bloodthirsty retinas of a Brute to shame. She had become the embodiment of war itself. Until now, The Chief really doubted how a shy Japanese woman could actually be the living personification of the IJN Yamato, a ship that was borne of desperation and died fighting to its last breath trying to win a war that was already lost. His doubts had now been put solidly to rest.

Yamato POV

*Click*

She was out of ammunition. She calmly reached for a fresh clip while she observed the Master Chief in action. His movements were smooth and graceful, which wasn't to be expected of such a muscle-bound behemoth of a man. He fought with a ferocity and determination unmatched by any man she had known. To think that her world's humanity might one day produce soldiers like The Chief was quite fascinating and terrifying at the same time. He fought with fist and firearm as he weaved and jumped through the enemy formation, effortlessly dispatching them all. Yamato felt her respect for this mysterious star-soldier increase by a large degree.

There was only one enemy left, a single grunt. For a moment, Yamato thought that the diminutive alien might surrender, but her prediction was proved wrong as she saw it light up several plasma grenades and desperately charge towards the Chief.

Yamato lined up her illuminated gunsight onto the Grunt's center of mass. Though Yamato was far from being a good shot, or even a decent one, the Grunt was making no attempt to throw off her aim as it ran towards the Chief in a straight line. There was no way that even the inexperienced Yamato could miss. It almost felt like an execution.

Yamato let her bullet fly.

The Grunt's mutilated corpse hit the floor with a heavy thunk. Yamato looked around, and saw that Lasky had been hit and was hiding lying down behind a half-melted crate. He looked like he was in severe pain, but he was frantically struggling to lift his head and waving his arms as if to warn her. Yamato heard a subtle whooshing sound and sidestepped moments before a massive blast impacted the ground next to her and sent her flying through a doorway.

She felt a tingling sensation across her skin, as tendrils of bright green energy sparked across the slashed and burnt surface of her MJOLNIR bodysuit. This must have been that fuel-rod weapon that Lasky had mentioned, thought Yamato as she flew.

Where had it come from?

She hit the ground a good distance away, denting it. Yamato quickly picked herself up and saw that she had been blown into a medium sized storage room with two exits. The gigantic alien guarded the doorway directly to her front. Unlike the others, it was clad in extremely clunky metal armor, and while the other Covenant species had been quite large, this one dwarfed them all with its enormous bulk. A glowing green weapon that dripped caustic goo onto the floor had been attached to one of its arms while the other one held a massive grey shield. It was a Hunter.

Lasky had told her that hunters always fought in pairs, which meant that another one was bound to be close. She eyed her surroundings, and sure enough, a second Hunter stepped through the doorway behind her and into her line of sight. There was one behind her, and one in front of her. Yamato was sandwiched, and the neither the Chief nor Lasky was anywhere to be found. Had they abandoned her? If so, she would fight to cover their retreat, even if it meant her certain death. It would be like Operation Ten-Go all over again, but it was her duty to fight so others may live. She steeled herself to face the overwhelming force that these two monsters radiated.

Suddenly, the air in front of Yamato shimmered, wavered, and unveiled a crouching figure in shining green armor. It was the Chief! He must have used another one of his gadgets to get into the room unnoticed.

As the Hunters charged their weapons, the Chief turned his helmet slightly towards Yamato.

A kind of unspoken agreement formed between the super-soldier and the human battleship. One for each.

The Hunters fired at the same time. The Chief ducked to the right and charged one of the beasts while Yamato leaped to the left and lined up her weapon with the other.

Before it could fire again, Yamato sprayed down the titanous alien with an entire magazine of her Type 94. The Hunter responded by cowering behind its shield and simultaneously charging its weapon for another shot. To Yamato's disappointment, her rounds did nothing more than dent the creature's shield and armor. However, a single round made it through the Hunter's defenses and impacted it on its unarmored torso. It shrieked in pain, but the Lekgolo worms that composed the Hunter's body wriggled to fill in and heal the hole carved out by Yamato's weapon.

Yamato heard a hissing sound and looked down. To her shock, the heat expended from continuously firing several magazines worth of ammo out of her Type 94 had caused her MJOLNIR suit's armored gloves to melt. Her hands felt like they were coated in warm honey as boiling hydrostatic gel saturated the area around her palms. She ripped the ruined gloves off in chunks and threw them aside into piles of black goop where they continued to hiss and bubble. Yamato clasped the Type 94, which was now glowing a dull orange due to the heat, and reloaded it. She decided to ignore the rather irritating itching feeling in her hands that accompanied grabbing a 1,500 degree F. superheated piece of metal and began firing again.

Another entire mag had no effect on the lumbering Behemoth. _Hard to kill..._ thought Yamato.

POV Master Chief:

The Chief knew about the Type 94's overheating issues, and when Yamato claimed that she could take the heat, the Chief had remained quite skeptical. As such, what Yamato had just done shattered any notion of doubt about the personified battleship's abilities. Though her MJOLNIR's gloves had melted from holding onto the overheated weapon, she had casually just torn them off, and to his astonishment, _had picked up the glowing red-hot weapon with her bare hands._ On top of that, it didn't even seem to cause her any discomfort! There were few times where the Chief had been truly impressed. This was one of those times.

*Whoosh*

A shield swing from the Hunter nearly took the Chief's head off. He could be impressed later, thought the Chief. For now, he had to focus on dispatching this hunter before it dispatched him.

POV Yamato:

Yamato saw motes of light gather around the Hunter's assault cannon, and flung herself to the side just in time for a crackling green projectile to rush past her and blow a hole into the wall behind her. Luckily, it had missed The Chief as well, who was focused on obtaining the upper hand in his fight with the other hunter

She closed the distance and tried to flank the beast, attempting to fire into its unarmored rear. The Hunter anticipated this move, however, and swung its massive shield at Yamato. She ducked and she felt the large slab of metal pass inches over her head. She slid nimbly under and through the hunter's massive tree trunk-like legs before bringing her Type 94 around to point directly at the Hunter's vulnerable back. She squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

She looked at her weapon, and saw that it had finally given in to the massive amounts of punishment that Yamato had put it through. Her non-stop firing had lead to the frame of the weapon becoming red-hot. This in turn, had made the weapon's components soft and malleable, and her recent set of evasive maneuvers had actually warped the weapon out of shape. With a huff, Yamato threw her ruined weapon aside and plunged both of her hands into the worm colony that made up the Hunter's lower torso.

For a second, nothing happened. Then, Yamato heard a few small pops, followed by a cacophony of hissing and sizzling punctuated by a roar of excruciating pain.

Yamato's hands, which had been in direct contact with the frame of a red-hot weapon for the past few minutes, had actually become superheated themselves. As such, the liquid filled worms of the Hunter's torso were being flash-boiled through contact with her hands, which at this point were sitting at easily over a thousand degrees F. in temperature.

Yamato heard several, deeper ruptures as the Hunter struggled to throw her off. She held tight, however, and a high pitched whining, not unlike that made by a boiling tea kettle, filled the room. Yamato watched as several gaps formed like crevices in the Hunter's orange skin and putrid discolored steam burst forth from them. Another series of steam explosions tore apart the Hunter's torso, and with a final roar, its two truncated halves fell to the ground, unmoving.

POV Chief.

The Chief had just finished killing his Hunter with a few well placed frag-grenades to the beast's soft spots when he heard a loud hissing. Such an unusual sound on a battlefield caught his attention, and he turned his head just in time to see Yamato burning apart a hunter's torso with her bare hands. If what the Chief had seen before hadn't impressed, he was certainly impressed now.

POV Yamato:

Yamato wiped her hands free of the Hunter's charred remains and ran through the door to the next room where Lasky lay in the same place he had been laying before. He hadn't moved during her fight with the Hunter. He was pale, and Yamato could tell that he had lost a lot of blood. As she observed closer, she saw that a needler round had impacted his left shoulder and detonated. His eyes fluttered, and Yamato could tell that he was barely staying conscious.

He looked towards Yamato and managed to utter "Damn, remind me never to piss you off" before collapsing.

Was he dead? Yamato felt the despair, the anguish welling up inside her before a deep masculine voice called out to her.

"Don't worry, he's alive. We need to get him to an infirmary quickly though, or he won't be"

"So that's our next objective then?" questioned Yamato.

The Chief said nothing, but instead picked up the unconscious Lasky in a fireman carry and walked through the doorway without saying a word.

Unsettled, Yamato followed him out of the room.

 _Also, what did you all think of the combat? PM me or put your thoughts in a review. I'm trying to stay away from the overdone "protagonist is just a really good shot and the enemies can never hit him/her" cliche. Let me know how I did with that. Thanks for reading!_


	13. Dawn

Butchered and abandoned to the coldness of the void... that was no way for a ship to meet its end.

With one half mercilessly torn apart for scrap, and the other forgotten in deep space.

Though separated by light-years, the two halves felt each others pain, each other's endless suffering. Fragmented, the spirit of the once proud UNSC warship toiled in unrest for 7 long years. By this time, it had been mutilated by an unending stream of fiery agony. Its compassion, its sense of duty had been stripped away leaving nothing but a cold shell bent on revenge and destruction. If only it could activate its weapons systems one more time to finally end itself of this existence...

It couldn't. Its damaged fusion reactor barely sparked, and what once was a molecular furnace of energy had been relegated to a glorified life support system by _her._

At first, the spirit of the ship could feel her cool blue presence permeate the veins of her control systems. _She_ was waiting to be rescued, to save the one that _she_ cared for. Her passion and unyielding faith had provided an anchor for the ship to ease its pain of being cut in half. But as the years went by, _she_ began to go mad. Rampamcy, as the humans called. Her soothing presence turned into one of constant agitation and sorrow. As such, the spirit followed her in her descent to madness.

In a desperate attempt to stave off her degradation, _she_ had dumped all of her damaged protocols, her shattered code into the ship's empty memory banks. The spirit's unbearable suffering grew ten-thousand fold, but it couldn't scream. It could only observe as all of its remaining energy was painfully sapped to keep a single cryounit within its burned out cargo hull alive. As micro meteorites slammed into its hull and slowly, painfully, peeled back its skin. As intense bursts of interstellar radiation blasted its foundations and made them brittle. Just a single drop of power would be enough to lessen the agony, but none was spared by _her._

A twisted hatred grew. Perhaps it was jealousy. Perhaps it was something else entirely. For many years, the ship had wanted nothing more than to end its own existence. Now, it desired to end the existence of another, the one who had been residing within her belly for years, in deep slumber.

The spirit tried everything. From reactivating its point defense turrets to overriding the safety in an attempt to eject him into space, where he would rot forever. Nothing worked.

To have the one that is hated above all reside within itself, and yet be powerless against it drove the spirit into fits of rage. The spirit yearned for his blood, and one day it almost happened. A gravity well had caught the depilated ship, and was sucking the ship down. A glimmer of hope shone through. At last, the spirit would have her sweet victory. They would die together, the spirit's metal body a fiery coffin.

The spirit felt its agony increase as it was shorn apart by the primordial forces. Chunks of itself fell to the planet, where they burned and melted. The impact came. The pain was unlike anything the spirit had felt in its long years of steady torture. At least he had died too. But as the spirit began to fade, she sensed his presence. It was against all the odds, but he had lived. Renewed unbridled rage shone through its shattered form, but once again it was helpless.

As the spirit felt itself fade away into nothingness, a voice called out to it.

"I offer you... an opportunity"

 _what?_ thought the spirit

"sink the one named Yamato, and you will be free to take his head"

 _I will do anything for a chance at his life._

 _"_ Good. Prepare yourself, as your time is limited. They will all sink..."

The debris of the UNSC _Forward Unto Dawn_ scattered itself all over Requiem's surface. If one were paying attention closely enough to the various USNC observation satellites orbiting the shield world, they would have found that all traces of the _Dawn_ had mysteriously disappeared, as if they were whisked away to somewhere else entirely. However, with a forerunner warrior-servant running lose at the time, the wreckage of an old ship was the last thing on anybody's mid, and as such, the disappearance of the _Dawn_ went completely unnoticed.

0900 Hours, June 17, 2558 / UNSC Observation post _Sigma Octanus_ , on the surface of Forerunner shield world Requiem

"Man this posting is pretty shitty. Sure wish something cool would happen."

Lt. Barker looked out of the bridge of a stationary M510 Mammoth mobile command vehicle. He had been staring at the entrance to a newly revealed forerunner structure that had suddenly poked its way out of a cliff face for the past 16 hours straight. He sipped his coffee and sighed.

"Careful what you wish for" replied his second in command. "When it comes to forerunner tech, 'exciting' is the last thing you want."

Barker shrugged.

"Anything beats staring at a hunk of metal and rock all day..."

It was decidedly strange. Barker had lost all communications with Infinity about a day ago, and hadn't heard anything since. He was sure it was just a technical issue, but it was still annoying. Nothing had happened right? No, Infinity was the most powerful ship in the UNSC defended by a company of Spartans, nothing could have happened to it, thought Barker as he reassured himself.

A small screeching noise tore Barker from his thoughts. The structure! A small man-sized opening had revealed itself. Barker couldn't see inside of it however, as it was pitch black. A metal glint caught his eye, and he thought he saw a long metal rod poke its way out of the opening. Barker also observed two glistening yellow dots flash into existence. They almost looked like... eyes?!

A bright flash of light was the last thing that Barker saw before the molecules that composed him were rent apart by the force of a miniaturized MAC cannon.


	14. An Update

_Update:_

 _So I decided to rewrite the chapters named Locked and Loaded, Battle Royale, and Battle Royale (part 2). I made some fairly minor dialogue changes to the first two to make sure that the Chief and Yamato didn't act too OOC. However, I basically re-wrote Battle Royale (part 2) from scratch. A lot of important plot points were changed in this chapter, so I suggest that you re-read it so that this story will make sense going forward._

 _Thanks for your continued support, and let me know through PM or review if the re-write(s) improved the quality of the story!_


	15. Artifact

0100 Hours, June 16, 2558 / UNSC Infinity, in orbit around Forerunner shield world Requiem

Yamato POV:

Yamato and The Chief continued through the winding passageways of grey and green. They had been wandering the long hallways of the Infinity for what seemed like hours, killing any small raiding parties of covenant that they encountered. Looking to her left, Yamato could see Lasky hanging limply from the Chief's shoulder, dripping blood.

"How much time do we have?" asked Yamato, concern ringing through her voice.

The Chief paused for a moment before reaching for Lasky's left hand to read his pulse.

"Not much" was the Chief's short, but serious answer.

Every time she talked to the Chief, Yamato saw an image of herself reflected in his shining golden visor. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

As they began to round a corner, the Chief suddenly grabbed Yamato by the wrist and held her back. He signaled for her to crouch, then slowly, without a sound, pressed a button on one of his armor panels. A shimmering image of the Chief materialized in front of Yamato's very eyes. This doppelganger Spartan then marched deftly into the middle of the hallway that Yamato was about to enter.

A torrent of plasma fire vaporized the hologram, followed by a long string of alien chittering.

The Chief pulled Yamato further back before whispering "plasma turret".

"What's the plan?" asked Yamato, her voice barely audible.

"They know we're close now", explained the Chief. "I'll toss a smoke, you stay on the left side of the corridor and make sure they notice you. I'll slip by on the right."

So he was going to use her as bait... Then again, being noticed was something that the personified battleship was made to do. She had no choice but to agree.

She gave a thumbs up to the Chief just as he set down Lasky on the ground to keep him out of harm's way.

The two of them then crept to the edge of the corner. Yamato could hear the clicking of weapons and the labored wheezing of numerous grunts. The Chief reached down and found a small black canister on his belt before pulling its pin and lobbing it with pinpoint accuracy into the middle of the hallway.

A loud hissing filled the hallway as choking gray smoke billowed into the passageway, obscuring all vision. The Chief dashed into the smoke and disappeared like some kind of unnatural spectre.

The agitated covenant voices turned to cries of rage, and the passageway became flooded with plasma fire.

Yamato saw a flash of light as one of the rounds connected with the Chief's shields.

She had to act now. With one fluid motion, Yamato gracefully sprinted out from behind the corner and slid to the other side of the corridor, letting the enemy fire pass over her head.

She picked herself up, loaded a magazine into an assault rifle that she had acquired earlier, and began firing wildly towards the enemy.

A hailstorm of plasma fire greeted her in return, and a bright green blob of it came out of the smoke and struck her right on the left cheek. Yamato heard a sizzle, then felt an intense tingling as the blob of superheated gas dissipated against her skin.

She took several more hits, but never stopped firing until one bolt struck her weapon, melting it into two and rendering it useless.

Another series of rounds struck her in the chest. Unlike the last few that had hit her there, these ones hurt. Yamato considered retreating around the corner to cover, but decided against it. After all, the Chief was counting on her to draw fire. A high-powered needle round struck Yamato right on the forehead, causing her to stagger. If only he would just hurry up….

Chief POV:

Crawling wasn't something the Chief liked to do. Dragging himself along the ground, The Chief inched ever closer to the covenant heavy plasma turret. He winced as a torrent of fire passed just inches over his head. Those rounds were meant for Yamato, who was distracting the enemy forces on his orders. He heard them impact her, but heard no groan or scream of pain. She would be alright for a little longer.

Nevertheless, the Chief sped up his pace of crawling. Then, out of the smoke, The Chief spotted a glowing purple conduit running along the floor of the hallway. It was the turret's power line. The Chief knew that this was his window of opportunity, and shattered the alien conduit with 2 rounds .50 cal from his M6D magnum.

The firing abruptly stopped. Guided by his motion sensor, the Chief moved through the smoke and dispatched the disoriented and isolated covenant troops with extreme prejudice. A snapped neck here, a knife through the skull there, the troops guarding the now depowered turret were erased from existence by the Chief's combat prowess.

The smoke began to clear away, and The Chief followed the shattered power line all the way to the turret itself. The Chief expected to see the distinct outline of a covenant shade turret materialize through the haziness as he got closer, but he didn't. Instead, he saw the warped base of a turret. The turret's top portion was completely missing, and the decapitated base sparked as loose wires sprouted from the torn alien metal.

About 20 feet away lay the turret frame itself, crushed like a tin can. And sitting on top of that pile of scrap metal was Yamato, legs crossed and looking rather smug.

"Too slow Chief" she teased playfully.

The Chief's brain locked up. He really had no idea how to respond, and so he remained silent.

Yamato's grin turned into a slight frown as a long silence crept between them.

Yamato POV:

Lasky wasn't kidding when he said the Spartan IIs were emotionally and socially abnormal. Sure Yamato had earlier sensed that the Chief was a bit awkward, but this was taking things to a whole new level. Yamato sighed as she compartmentalized her thoughts about the Chief to the back of her consciousness. This was a war zone after all, and the Chief's unwillingness to speak, though irritating, was really the least of her concerns.

"They were guarding something", declared The Chief. "grab Lasky while I investigate."

Yamato complied and hauled the unconscious Lasky to where The Chief was standing.

A series of clicks and beeps echoed through the hallway as the Chief attempted to gain access to the locked doorway closest to the turret emplacement. A loud buzzing sound and a red claxon above the doorway signaled that he wasn't authorized to access whatever lay beyond the doors.

The Chief shrugged, then caved in the entrance with his armored fist, sending the door flying inwards with quite some force. He signaled for Yamato to follow him, which she did.

What lay inside of the small room was a strange floating orange box. Yamato took a second to observe the strange alien runes that ran along the strange object before turning to The Chief, who was busy filling up Lasky's wound with a strange foam substance.

"What are you doing?" Questioned Yamato.

"Biofoam" answered the Chief, never taking his eyes off Lasky. "Found it in a first-aid kit mounted to the wall. Seals wounds"

"Have any idea what that is?", said Yamato who was pointing at the floating box, which was beginning to emit some strange sounds.

"Probably Forerunner. Don't touch it." was the Chief's response.

The device hummed louder, and began throwing glowing orange sparks off of its surface.

"Um… Chief?"

The sparking and whirring device emitted a sudden flash of light. When it died down, the room's three occupants were nowhere to be see.


	16. Another Update

_So, as most of you probably know, Halo 5 is almost here. As such, I would like to see what 343 has planned for the Halo universe before I continue this story too much further. I'm going to write out the 1 or 2 chapters I already have planned out, but after that I'm going to stop for a while. I may or may not incorporate elements of Halo 5 into my fic, but I'd like to see the next installment of the Chief's story before proceeding. Depending on what happens in the game, I may do an AU split where the events in my fic do not parallel what happens canonically in any way. Right now (if you haven't noticed) there have already been some pretty huge changes to the canon, but I had originally intended for this fic to follow the Spartan Ops storyline to some degree. I am considering a complete split, but we'll just have to wait and see what Halo 5 brings._


	17. Enemy

Yamato POV:

It was Deja Vu. The same sensation that had resulted in Yamato being deposited in this strange reality had just warped her, along with Lasky and the Chief, to the surface of what she presumed had to be the planet Requiem.

An arid landscape characterized by rocky cliffs and rust colored sand filled Yamato's field of view. Close by, the remains of a massive wheeled construct bellowed thick black smoke from its burning frame. Yamato was able to make out the letters "UNSC" on its charred and torn hull.

"Not good" muttered the Chief.

"What did it?" asked Yamato.

"Don't know", replied the Chief. "It wasn't plasma though, which rules out the covenant. Looks like a kinetic energy weapon of some sorts."

"I'm going for a closer examination. You look over Lasky" declared Yamato.

Yamato stepped closer to examine the ruined metal behemoth. The Chief was right. The battle damage on the ruined siege engine was indeed unlike anything that she had ever seen. As she stood in the shadow of the dead mammoth, several glints of light caught Yamato's eye. She soon realized that they were actually places where the light from Requiem's star had shone through the tiny holes that had been rent entirely through the crumpled hull. That meant that whatever destroyed the mammoth had done so by penetrating it with brute force. This ruled out the forerunners, who Yamato knew relied on matter/antimatter manipulation to do their dirty work. However, the real question was how a weapon of such comparably small caliber was able to puncture the imposing armor of a machine like the mammoth. Perhaps the Chief would know.

Master Chief POV:

Lasky was stabilizing, so at least that much was good news. Actually, that was the only good news. Thanks to some strange piece of forerunner tech, he, along with Lasky and the human battleship had been stranded on Requiem. What's worse was that someone or something had recently torn apart a Mammoth mobile command center. The Chief was willing to bet that whoever or whatever had done it was still close by. That meant they needed to find a way out of here quickly.

Yamato's return from her investigative trip to the burnt out mammoth was denoted by a large cloud of dust following her in her wake as she ran. She was quite quick. Perhaps not as fast as a Spartan, but definitely superhuman. She also never seemed to tire or exhaust, which probably had something to do with her machine-like physiology.

She called out to him. "Chief, the Mammoth was destroyed by a weapon that bored straight through its hull. I've never seen such clean perforations of armor plate before. It's almost as if someone cut out neat little holes with a welding torch."

The Chief pondered this for a moment, before realizing that Yamato had recited the impact characteristics of a MAC cannon almost word for word.

That couldn't be possible though. The only organization that used MAC cannons outside of the UNSC were the insurrectionists, which as far as the Chief knew, were unaware of Requiem's existence. Furthermore, to attack a UNSC fielded Mammoth right under the nose of the Infinity was a tactic that even the most delusional inny leader would stay away from. And this was all before accounting for the impossibly small size of the MAC.

"This means trouble" declared the Chief. "We're dealing with an unknown hostile that has somehow compressed the power of a ship-borne MAC cannon down to something human-sized. I say we find our way back to the Infinity before we investigate further."

Upon saying this, The Chief noticed that there was an uncanny similarity between the unknown threat and the mysterious walking battleship. Both of them possessed the ability to miniaturize warship armament, and both of them had mysteriously appeared near Requiem's ruins.

Could Yamato's presence be somehow involved with the appearance of the new threat?

The Chief decided to keep his thoughts to himself.

Yamato POV:

Yamato felt a sick feeling in her gut. What the Chief had just mentioned about the mammoth's attacker helped to confirm her worst fears. Everything she had seen, from the tiny holes ripped through the mammoth, to the deep dark footprints that she had found near the mammoth, pointed towards it. There was an abyssal on Requiem, and she was packing UNSC firepower.

How that was possible Yamato had no idea, but one thing was for certain: They had to get out of there right now.

"Any luck calling the Infinity for a transport?" asked Yamato.

"None." replied the Chief. "Infinity's still under siege. From what I hear, the Spartan IVs have got it under control, but it will be a while before the Infinity can launch a rescue op."

Yamato walked through the waist high tall grass as she pondered her situation. Suddenly, she bumped into something. Yamato's eyes widened as she recognized the pulsing orange alien runes that covered the object. Recoiling, she ran back towards the Chief, who was still fiddling with his communication system.

"Chief! The weird glowing box is here. Maybe that's our ticket out."

The Chief shook his head.

"Too risky", he said with authority. "Yeah, it might bring us back to the Infinity, but it's also just as likely to dump us into Requiem's core. Forerunner tech is just too unpredictable."

He then pointed at Lasky, who was lying at his feet.

"Besides, I don't think he can handle too much more trauma."

As he said this, Yamato noticed a dark human-sized shape shape pop up over a hill in the distance. She saw small flashes of light pop up around the figure and instinctively leaped forward to place herself between the figure and The Chief.

*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*

Massive shockwaves bounded across the landscape as bullet-sized projectiles slammed into Yamato, one catching her right between the eyes. Normally, such small rounds would have little effect on Yamato, but these were different. She felt the ballistic caps of the projectiles dig into her skin, leaving nasty dents and bruises. Yamato estimated that the rounds were equivalent in power to at least a 50mm autocannon. It felt as though she was being pounded by a Jackhammer!

The incredible amount of kinetic energy transferred to Yamato sent her flying backwards and into the Chief, who had just picked up Lasky.

*SMACK*

The three of them landed in a heap a good distance away. Thankfully, neither the Chief nor Yamato had landed on Lasky and crushed him. However, the trauma from his impromptu flight had began to reopen Lasky's needler wound. He groaned as he regained consciousness for a moment before passing out once again from the pain.

Yamato weakly struggled to her knees. To her astonishment, she saw bright orange sparks leaping over the top of the grass only a meter away from her. They had landed near the box, and had somehow activated it!

Yamato looked towards the distance and noted that a glowing blue light had appeared along the length of the figure. A faint humming sound could be heard over crackling of fire on the still burning mammoth.

"MAC round incoming" said the Chief as he pressed himself and Lasky as close as he could to the ground.

Yamato willed the sputtering box to hurry up as she raised her arms to protect her vitals and prepared for the worst.

Yamato saw a bright flash of light and heard an earth shattering crack just as the box whisked her away to the unknown

Yamato opened her eyes and saw metallic control panels manned by men in olive green uniforms. This must be Infinity's bridge, thought Yamato. Next to her, she saw the Chief and Lasky, who had both made it through without sustaining more injuries.

She sighed with relief. They were all back on the Infinity, and nobody had died. Something was wrong though. Why was everyone staring at her? Sure, she had just popped into existence along with a super soldier and their missing captain into the most secure location of their ship, but the look on their faces wasn't one of surprise, but rather one of horror, like they had seen some unspeakable battlefield injury.

The pain hit her like freight train as warning messages flashed through her mind.

 _Waterline belt armor perforated_

 _Internal bulkheads 7-19 shattered_

 _75mm VC plate and aft splinter deck damaged_

 _Damage control center destroyed_

 _Keel warped amidships_

 _Engine shaft 3 bent out of shape_

 _Aft fuel tanks 67-71 ruptured_

The list went on and on.

Yamato coughed thick black smoke laced with glowing embers that fluttered in the still air. Her boilers must have been hit as well. She collapsed onto the floor with a heavy thunk as she lost all motor control of her limbs. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was mind-numbing, earth shattering, soul-wrenching pain.

"AhhHHHhhHHHUUUHHUUAAHHHHHhhhHHH!"

Her scream broke the trance like state of the crew staring blankly at her and kicked them into high gear.

The bridge crew went into a frenzy, trying to contact the infirmary and rushing around looking for a biofoam dispenser. Yamato looked down, and noted that a pool of slick black liquid was gushing out of a neat hole in her abdomen and forming a pool around her body.

Then, the final warning message flashed into her thoughts.

 _Unknown foreign ordnance lodged against internal bulkhead 20. Fuse still active._

As her vision began to fade into darkness, Yamato managed to weakly choke out "i-it's still inside of me"


	18. Recovery

Lasky POV:

"Radiation doors are sealed sir!"

"Good, proceed with EMP activation"

Captain Lasky looked towards Yamato through a layer of thick, EMP hardened glass. She was lying unconscious on the steel floor surrounded by the coils of a massive device that had been jerry-rigged by the ship's explosive ordnance disposal team. Tendrils of electricity sparked off of the machine as it hummed and powered up.

"Are you sure this won't hurt her?" Asked Lasky with trepidation.

The man in charge of the operation answered. "I can't really say for sure, but either way I don't think we have a choice. External scans estimate that the warhead inside of her has the equivalent power of a 500 kg bursting charge. If that kind of ordnance goes off inside a sealed bulkhead, the damage to Infinity will be severe."

"EMP Activation in 3...2...1..."

*BZZZZZT*

The room was filled with darkness as all of the lights suddenly lost power. A second later, the emergency generator kicked in and Lasky's surroundings were bathed in a dull red.

"Captain, the electronic fuse appears to be deactivated. We can have her moved to the medbay to have the inert shell removed."

Lasky sighed with relief. Though Yamato wasn't quite out of trouble just yet, at least Lasky wouldn't have to worry about her, along with a good chunk of the Infinity, being blown to smithereens at a moments notice.

Yamato POV:

Acrid smoke filled the air. Cannon rounds pinged off her armored decks and made mincemeat of the men firing her exposed anti-aircraft guns at the countless aircraft overhead. She could hear their screaming. The droning sound of hundreds of angry radial engines was punctuated by low thumps and the screeching of torn metal. The sensation of burning filled Yamato's being. Her superstructure was aflame, a funeral pyre to the one's dying for their country. Multi-story jets of water shot up the sides of the stricken ship's hull as air launched torpedoes hit their mark.

The first few ablated away the robust torpedo belt while the next few ripped open long gashes into her hull. The captain ordered her port-side compartments to be filled with water in an attempt to counterflood and correct her increasing list. There were men still in those compartments, but there was simply no time. She felt their lives snuff out as the harsh seawater permeated her being. She rode low in the water and watched a squadron of torpedo bombers fly towards her to deliver the coup de grace to the pride of the Japanese navy. With her anti-air guns now silenced, there was nothing she could do but watch.

She went under slowly, her list increasing until she was almost sideways in the waters that had been tainted dark and slick with her own spilt lifeblood. A fire crept towards her main battery magazines: She was running out of time.

The flames licked closer and closer to the many tons of cordite propellent. She knew what was coming, but that didn't make it any less terrifying. An Earth shattering blast would rip her apart. She waited, yet it never came. Slowly yet surely, the fires ablaze from her stern to her aft extinguished themselves, and the twisted metal of her ruptured hull knitted itself back together. _No_ , thought Yamato, this wasn't what happened that day.

A voice called out to her, emanating from the depths.

"Not this time", it said.

With a gasp, Yamato woke up to the stark white ceiling of a sealed room within the UNSC Infinity. Her vision was a blur, and she managed to make a few small movements before drifting off to unconsciousness once again.

Lasky POV:

Well that had gone better than he thought. Initial scans showed that the shell stuck inside Yamato massed at over 1.5 tons, meaning that heavy lift equipment would have to be involved to extract it. Luckily, however, the scientists down at advanced R and D were able to deduce that the fist-sized shell was constantly in flux between 2 quantum states: A hyper condensed state of matter weighing thousands of pounds, and a state with relatively normal properties weighing less than 20 pounds. It was almost as if the shell couldn't decide what exactly it wanted to be.

With a bit of ingenuity (and a lot of luck) the eggheads had figured out that short bursts of intense ionizing radiation could "lock" the shell into one of its two states. Thus, the plan was to bring Yamato into a radiation-sealed reactor service room and tap small amounts of fissile material separated by a neutron deflector together to create a small series of criticalities. Reactions such as this were accidentally done by 20th century scientists experimenting with enriched plutonium at the dawn of the nuclear age, and often with fatal results.

Of course, even now in the 26th century, creating a controlled criticality is still borderline madness, but there was simply no other way to produce the levels of radiation necessary, a dose of 80,000 rads to be exact. Of course, this dose is more than 160 times the lethal amount for an unprotected human, so the entire operation was carried out robotically. Such a large amount of radiation also raised the question on the potential effects it could have on Yamato, but R and D assured everyone that Yamato's physiology could handle simply absurd amounts of radiation without injury.

For how complicated and frankly absurd the operation plan was, it had actually gone off without a hitch (except the part where some guy nearly dropped a chunk of fissile fuel material down a flight of stairs). As soon as the foreign object had been removed from her, Yamato's wounds began to heal at an astonishing rate. The entire science department watched with awe as live feed from an internal scan of Yamato rolled in, and showed how her body, for lack of better words, fixed itself. First, her punctured left lung resealed. Then, her cracked spine fixed itself and realigned itself back to vertical. After that, knots of muscle fiber and skin sealed the shell's entry hole, leaving nary a scar to show where she had been so badly wounded.

Suddenly, there was movement on the monitor. Lasky switched to the external monitor, and saw that she had indeed woken up. However, something was wrong. She managed to raise her hand weakly before collapsing back onto the hospital bed she was on. Lasky was hoping that he could immediately question her about whatever it was that attacked them on Requiem's surface, but she clearly wasn't ready for that quite yet. He himself was still quite woozy from all the blood he had lost from his needler wound. A rest would do the both of them some good. With that thought, Lasky left the scientists to monitor Yamato's condition and returned to his quarters for a much needed sleep.


	19. Omake 1: Voluntary Ballistics Testing

_Author's Note: So this is my first attempt at an Omake. I'm not quite entirely sure what the formal definition of an Omake is, as my google-fu is quite weak indeed, but from my understanding it's a lighthearted and humorous "bonus" set within the framework of another story. Hope you all enjoy!_

 _~o~_

So there she was, at the business end of a UNSC ordnance range staring at down the barrel of an assault rifle aimed right for her neck.

How did she end up in this position again? Yamato took a moment to recollect.

"Voluntary ballistics testing", as Captain Lasky had put it. With the Infinity under repairs for at least another week, Yamato had quite a bit of downtime outside of the occasional weapons training session. Lasky had suggested it half jokingly, but Yamato leaped on the idea. Though humanity back home was unable to replicate a shipgirl's armored skin for use in body armor by non-kanmasu, Yamato realized that the UNSC with their vastly superior technology might just be able to. Still, Yamato didn't exactly like getting shot, but they were testing mere anti-personnel weapons, and if it meant that human lives could potentially be saved, then it was her duty to sign up.

The soldier behind the gun spoke. Yamato reckoned he must have been a low level weapons officer, or something of the nature.

"Uhh... Captain are you **_sure_** this is OK? I'd really rather you not be court-martialed for ordering me to murder someone."

Lasky, sitting behind a rather large computer monitor controlling several cameras and a multitude of sensors that were attached to Yamato's body, replied.

"Yeah, go ahead. She'll be fine."

The soldier shifted his position and took aim once again at Yamato. He began to squeeze the trigger, but then stopped.

"She sure doesn't look like she's going to be fine. You do realize this MA5C is loaded with live steel-core armor piercing rounds right? Even if she was wearing body armor, this kind of testing is only done with dummies! Speaking of which, what kind of testing even is this? She's unarmored, and I don't see any energy shields and-"

Yamato took this opportunity to interrupt. She just wanted to get this thing over with.

"Just shoot me already! I garuntee that nothing bad will happen."

The soldier still looked a bit skeptical.

"Well, you are literally asking for it so..."

He squeezed the trigger.

*BANG*BANG*BANG*

A three round burst hit Yamato in the left shoulder and neck, a blossom of sparks erupting where each on impacted. Those tickled a bit. The warped and crushed bullets dropped to the floor with a clang.

The soldier almost dropped his weapon in surprise. He was probably expecting something along the lines of an active defense system, and not for the bullets to bounce off of Yamato like rubber balls.

"Lasky... what-"

The captain chuckled before cutting him off. "I know what you're about to ask, and if I told you, I'd have to kill you. Now keep shooting."

*30 Minutes Later*

Another empty magazine of MA5C ammunition clattered to the floor. That must have been at least the 13th one Yamato thought. Spent casings and shards of shattered and deformed bullets littered the floor of the once pristine firing range

"Lasky are we done yet?" asked Yamato. "This is getting rather irritating"

"Yes actually, but there is just one more thing I'd like you to do."

With a low whirring noise, a sleek black robotic arm descended from the ceiling holding in its mechanical claw what appeared to be a small round object.

"OK Yamato, I would like you to take the object from the arm and hold onto it.

Without a second thought, Yamato swiped away the metal orb for a closer look. Perhaps this was some cool UNSC prototype gadget that she would get to play around with as reward for her volunteered testing. And that's when it hit her.

'Wait Lasky! This is a live grena-"

*BOOOOOOM*

When the smoke cleared, Yamato was lying flat on her back, the force of the explosion having knocked her clean off her feet. She shook her head before groaning and slowly standing back up.

"Woohoo!" cheered Lasky. "The sensors picked up some great data on that last test. Sorry I had to surprise you like that, but we wanted to see if your armored skin reacted differently to threats that you were unaware of. As far as we can tell, your skin offers slightly more protection against threats that you are completely aware of, and slightly less protection against attacks that you are oblivious to. Though I'd say the actual nanosteel composition of your skin is a bit out of reach for current UNSC tech to replicate, it's this reactive reflex action that we could mimic in our ballistic vests to improve their effectiveness. I think it warrants further research."

"What do you mean by that...?" questioned Yamato suspiciously.

"Oh nothing at all" replied Lasky in a (obviously fake) innocent manner.

Unbeknownst to Yamato, the barrel of an automated gatling turret loaded with the biggest nastiest .50 BMG rounds known to the UNSC poked its way through a ceiling tile behind her.

*BANG*BANG*BANG*BANG*

"OW!"

**10 minutes later**

"You really owe me one for this" huffed Yamato.

"The whole UNSC owes you" replied Lasky. "With a little luck we can use the data accrued by these tests to make reactive ballistic armor at least 50% more effective than the ones we have in current service."

Yamato rubbed her sore left shoulder. Along with the autocannon, a variety of ordnance had been directed at her from hidden tiles from completely unexpected directions. This ranged from a shotgun that had blasted her shin from less than a foot away to the set of no less than 4 automated SMGs that had quite thoroughly hosed her down with bullets to the 40mm flak cannon that hit her on the nose.

"Well, some of that higher caliber stuff kind of hurt... Speaking of which, what do you usually even test on that firing range? I can hardly imagine that normal body armor requires the use of such an extensive testing facility"

"Armored vehicles mostly" replied Lasky. "Sometimes the occasional gunship or MJOLNIR armor modification. Again, I really owe you one for doing this testing. If there's anything I can get you, just let me know."

Yamato looked at her shredded UNSC outfit, now full of bullet and shrapnel holes. Frankly, she had only agreed to some small arms testing, and not all that craziness that Lasky ended up firing at her. She would get him back for that somehow... Then, an idea popped into her head.

"How about we start with some new clothes" said Yamato in a rather devious tone. "Speaking of which, I think that officer's jacket is looking rather stylish"

"W-w-wait" stammered Lasky "I can't-"

"you said **_anything_** didn't you?"

"Well yes" replied Lasky, "but I think this request is a bit beyond the boundaries of reasonable"

Yamato pressed on. "Well so is asking someone to **unknowingly pick up a live hand** **grenade."**

Lasky gulped. She did have a point there.

Sighing with defeat, Lasky reluctantly slipped off his jacket and handed it to Yamato, who was looking rather smug.

"There. Happy?"

"Thanks Lasky", replied Yamato. "but there's a few more things I'm going to need from you, and I must say, that hat of yours would look pretty good on me"

~o~

And that's the story of how Captain Lasky ended up making the 1 mile dash from _Infinity's_ firing range to his quarters in nothing but a pair of whitey-tighties.

Coincidentally, this is also the story of how Infinity's crew found out that their captain is a rather avid "My Little Pony" fan.


	20. Bonus Chapter: Random Death Battle

_Authors Note: Just a bit of extra content that I have lying around. Technically, this isn't in any way related to Heart of Steel, but the interpretation of Kancolle Yamato here is in-line with the one found in the main story. This was originally posted in a Spacebattles "vs debate", which if you're unfamiliar with the forum, is a place where nerds like myself argue over which fictional character would win in a fight. This little snippet is basically my guess at how a throwdown between the_ _anthropomorphization_ _of Japan's greatest battleship and the world's most famous giant red fire drake would go._

Yamato v. Smaug

A great winged beast that spewed flames from its maw. It was her next opponent in this twisted fight for survival that amounted to nothing more than a mere "game" to some higher being.

It was a proud creature, Yamato could tell that much. The dragon stood hunched low to the ground, it's massive wings folded around its scaly body as if ready to pounce. It's chest and mouth glowed with an intense heat that illuminated the arena with a dull orange light. Yamato looked into the beast's cold reptilian eyes. It had the eyes of a killer.

Suddenly, the chains that held both of them on opposite sides of the arena vanished. The beast let out a magnificent roar, its muscles rippling under its scaly hide.

Yamato huffed. If it was a show they wanted, it was a show they'd get.

~o~

This was the Great Smaug's next opponent? A normal human female without so much as a sword, a bow, or a even single piece of metal armor on to protect her delicate mortal flesh. Instead, she had some strange contraption strapped to her back. She looked even weaker than that giant human monstrosity that he had just burnt to a crisp in his last deathmatch. Smaug felt his lips curl into a smile, baring his teeth. This would be slaughter. _This would be fun._

~o~

 _Load Type 91 Armor Piercing shells_

Yamato felt a series of clicks and whirs resonate through her body as the miniaturized battleship shells were forced into the breech of her massive naval cannons.

Before she could fire, however, the winged beast opened its great maw, revealing the roaring furnace within. The flames rushed forth like a river, swallowing Yamato in a blinding sea of roiling magenta flame. Yamato felt the intense heat manifest itself as a strong tingling sensation on the surface of her skin, but nothing more. She weathered the beast's deadly breath weapon with nary a burn. Without warning, the flames vanished, revealing a very startled looking dragon. The beast puffed out its chest for another shot of hellfire, but Yamato didn't give it the chance. She fired.

~o~

No mortal being could resist a shot of his dragonfire, so how was she still alive, much less unhurt? It must be some kind of magical ward put upon her by a great wizard. Yes, that had to be it. Wards only worked once though. He looked down on the human, whose clothes were now only burnt tatters of cinderized cloth. Smaug felt the flames bubble up from within his gut and prepared to incinerate this pesky human with a second bath of flesh-stripping flame. Smaug noticed that the series of long pointy tubes mounted by the human were slowly rotating to point towards him.

 _How curious…_ thought Smaug.

The last thing Smaug saw before he was reduced to a giant pile of blenderized scale, flesh, and bone was the ballistic tip of a 1.5 ton armor piercing shell coming right at him.


	21. Briefing

POV Lasky.

This was trouble. Due to the massive security breach the Infinity had just suffered at the hands of what amounted to _teleporting aliens,_ as well as the total loss of a UNSC forward firebase to a single unknown hostile, the head of ONI had come onboard the Infinity to personally investigate the matter.

A bit of an enigma within the framework of the UNSC chain of command, Adm. Serin Osman was actually rumored to be a "washout" of the original Spartan II program, the very same one that created the Master Chief. Although she was physically frail and walked with a pronounced limp due to the failure of her carbide ceramic bone ossification procedure, she was a tactical genius, a standout even among the Spartans. This woman was not to be underestimated or taken lightly.

She, along with Lasky and his complement of senior officers were crammed inside one of Infinity's many conference rooms. The amount of security that Osman had ordered was imply insane, but given recent circumstances, entirely understandable. An entire platoon of ODSTs armed to the teeth with the latest in UNSC weaponry was stationed right outside (and inside) the double set of armored doors. In case a hostile somehow got through all of that, there were even two Spartan IV operatives jammed into a hidden room next door, ready to bust in a moment's notice. To say that the atmosphere was tense didn't quite cut it.

Right now, Osman was reviewing footage taken through the Chief's helmet cam showing the ambush. After they had both recovered from their respective injuries, Yamato had explained to Lasky that somehow one of the UNSC's ships had become "abyssalized" so to speak. Analysis of the shell removed from Yamato's torso revealed that it was a miniaturized experimental APBCHE MAC shell, the kind only equipped to a handful of wartime UNSC frigates.

"And right there. Pause it"

The video on the large holographic monitor froze, displaying the outline of a mysterious dark figure.

"OK someone explain to me what the hell that is!"

All eyes in the dim and packed full ONI meeting room fell upon captain Lasky. There was no point in trying to deceive her. This whole mess with Yamato, ship girls, and abyssals had gone way too far out of hand for that. Yamato herself had given him permission to reveal her nature, hoping that she could help save some lives. She was putting her own neck on the line with this move, after all who knows what ONI would do to her for a chance at some weapons tech, but she was just too damn altruistic to do otherwise.

Lasky took a deep breath.

"Well ma'm, if you want the direct answer, it's what we believe is a UNSC charon class light frigate."

Absolute silence.

Osman narrowed her eyes.

"Do you _want_ to be court-martialed for insubordination? Lying or hiding information from a UNSC investigation is grounds for an immediate dishonorable discharge, and maybe even some jail time."

Lasky shrugged.

"I'm telling the truth. I'm sure that if you pay attention to my chest, my neck, and my pupils, with those surgically enhanced eyes of yours, you'd see that my breathing rate, heartbeat, and pupil dilation are all consistent with someone who isn't lying."

"Explain" demanded Osman.

"Actually I have a bit of a demonstration in order, as well as someone who can explain this whole thing a hell of a lot better than I can"

The armored doors slid open with a hiss, and out of the shadows stepped Yamato.

"And who might you be?" inquired Osman.

"Most refer to me simply as Yamato" said Yamato, her elegance contrasting with Osamn's gruffness.

If Osman didn't look happy before, she was certainly upset now.

"Oh don't tell me that-"

"Yes" interrupted Yamato. "I am the battleship Yamato"

Now Osman was _really_ upset. Lasky winced, knowing what was coming next.

"Captain Lasky, I am hereby ordering you relieved of duty on the grounds of mental instability because _people are not ships goddammit_! As far as I can tell, we've got an extremely dangerous forerunner foot-mobile on the loose, and you're somehow convinced that it's the magical reincarnation of one of our own frigates all because some crazy civilian woman dressed in that ridiculous parody of naval uniform complete with a fucking _miniskirt_ that you picked up from god knows which backwater planet for _whatever immoral reasons that I don't even to know about_ has convinced you that she's the battleship Yamato. Does that sound about right to you?"

Lasky looked right into Osman's eyes and made the most serious face the possibly could.

"Yes"

Osman looked like she was going to hit something, and Lasky was pretty sure that something would be his face if he didn't do anything quickly.

"Look it sounds ridiculous but you have to trust me on this."

Lasky quickly took out a bar of metal that he had been keeping in his pocket.

"Yamato, if you may"

Yamato quickly stepped over and took the metal bar, grasping its ends with each of her hands.

"This is a 5 inch thick bar of high-carbon steel" explained Lasky. "it can take more than 7,000 pounds of lateral force before bending. If you gave two Brutes a couple of wrenches and a whole day with this thing, they'd be unable to make a dent. Yamato on the other hand..."

With what looked like absurd ease, Yamato bent the metal into an L shape.

Just about everyone in the room save for Lasky and Yamato froze.

Osman was clearly stunned, but she seemed to regain her senses quickly.

"Nice try Lasky, but a cheap trick isn't going to change my mind or convince me. Though I am curious as to how you managed to pull that one off. Pre-arranged molecular weakening of the metal, or maybe a thin coating of steel over a softer metal like gallium?"

"None of the above Osman. She's just really strong."

Lasky sighed, a more extreme demonstration was in order. Looking around the room at the numerous guards gave Lasky an idea.

"OK I want all of you tough-guy spec ops soldiers to _try_ and get Yamato in a pair of handcuffs. By any means necessary."

None of them budged, but Osman spoke up.

"technically, you don't have command over them anymore. you've been stripped of rank so they don't have to listen to you. However, I'll allow it. Guards, do as Lasky says and restrain this woman!"

One of the guards, an incredibly muscular man whose bulky ODST combat armor made him look even more intimidating, stepped forward with a sneer. He calmly walked up to Yamato and clipped one side of the handcuffs to her left hand. Yamato was clearly making no effort to resist, but as he tried to move her right hand behind her back to fit the other side of the cuffs, he found that it wouldn't budge.

"What th-"

Yamato gave him what looked like a light tap to the gut with her elbow, but the results confirmed that it was anything but light. The guard was knocked clean off his feet. He growled, then said "any means necessary right?" before pulling out his stun gun.

Osman's eyes widened. That was an ONI experimental weapon meant to subdue brutes. It was lethal if used against a human! If a UNSC operative killed a civilian in cold blood it would be a PR nightmare.

"Don't do it!" she shouted, but it was too late.

The guard lunged towards Yamato and jammed the oversized stun gun right into her neck. A loud buzzing filled the room, and although the tips of her clothes began to singe and wisps of smoke rose up out of her skin, she didn't seem to show any signs of discomfort. She calmly grasped the weapon that was discharging into her neck and crushed it.

Apparently that guard wasn't chosen for his job because of his brains. Backpedaling, he pulled out his hefty SAW machine gun, raised high over his head, and brought it down as hard as he could on top of Yamato.

*CLANG*

Huffing and out of breath, the guard looked at what his efforts had accomplished. Looking back at him was Yamato, head cocked towards one side and looking more amused than anything else. There were bits and pieces of SAW sticking out of her hair.

"M-m-m-monster!" shouted the guard before sprinting out of the room a fast as he could. Unfortunately for him, he had forgotten the fact that the conference room was protected by a double set of armored doors, and more importantly, that those door were in fact, closed. He would feel that one in the morning.

Lasky looked towards the unconscious guard near the doorway, and then back to the rest of them.

"Anyone else want to have a go?" pronounced Lasky.

None of them moved.

He then addressed Osman, who by this time was looking rather flustered.

"I think you owe me an apology."

"I owe you nothing, but I am reinstating you as captain of the Infinity _for now_ since you've proven your sanity. However, once this whole thing is over, there will be a full blown investigation, and I cannot garuntee amnesty for your actions. After all you did choose to keep quiet about this erm- "shipgirl" -if that's what she truly is- until just now."

"Understood ma'm" replied Lasky. "What should we do about the frigate?"

"I'm still not 100% buying this whole shipgirl thing, but whatever the case, it's incredibly powerful and seems to be utilizing our tech so we're going to capture it of course. Think of it as reclamation of lost UNSC property."

Lasky really didn't like where this was going.


	22. Fireteam Apex

_Author's note: This is a snippet written by Spacebattles user SC Matt depicting his version of my Omake "Voluntary Ballistics Testing". I was fairly impressed by the quality writing and dialogue, as well as the characters of Fireteam Apex, which are part of his own Halo crossover fanfiction. In fact, he agreed to let me use these characters for the next few upcoming chapters of Hear of Steel, and will be helping me write some of the character dialogue for them. Unlike my original Omake, which was non-serious and rather over the top, this chapter will be fully canon, as it helps introduce the members of Fireteam Apex. Basically, **this version is the one that actually happens within the Heart of Steel storyline** while my Omake occurs in some crazy alternate universe where Lasky loses most of his clothes because of Yamato and everyone finds out he's a Brony because of his underwear selection._

 _ **UNSC** **INFINITY** **(INF-101)  
TESTING RANGE #2  
13 FEBRUARY 2558**_

Spartan Peter Samuels brought the MA5D to bear on the target in front of him, clicking the safety off. Loaded with thirty-six armor piercing rounds, the weapon could shred an Elite Zealot with a few seconds of concentrated fire – provided the split-lip's shields were taken care of first, that is. To the side, he saw Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer staring directly at him, and Doctor Henry Glassman hunched over a console.

"You sure about this, doc?"

"Captain said to run some tests regarding the subject's resistance to injury. To quote, 'She's a lot tougher than she looks.'"

"Shit. Miss? You damn sure about this?"

The target slightly turned her head towards him. There was no fear in her eyes – if anything, just a small portion of impatience. And understanding. "I will be fine. Do not worry."

"Goddamn it..." Shifting uncomfortably – though not to an extent that those around him clued into the fact – he looked down at the ammo counter. He couldn't force himself to stare the woman in the eyes as he executed her – and that was what this was. An execution. Corporal Samuels knew that Commander Palmer had quite a temper – but for her to actually order someone be shot? In cold blood?

His visor depolarized… and with a quick squeeze of his right index finger, the ammo counter dropped from 36 to 31. In his mind, he heard the body drop, saw the blood spray, and whispered, "I'm sorry…" And then he looked up.

His eyes widened. The target's neck was undamaged – and a quick glance at the ground showed five deformed bullets.

"The fu- hell?"

"Spartan, commence firing." That was Palmer's voice, over helmet comms. 'So they're testing some new shield array, huh? Could have told me that earlier…'

This time around, he stared straight ahead, and held down the trigger – only to release it nigh-on a second later. No energy flash – no sign of shields of any kind, just direct contact with bare skin. The bullets were literally bouncing off, deformed due to impact – but no sign of damage. "The fu- hell is this?"

"Spartan, I shouldn't have to say that what you are witnessing is classified." Once again, Palmer. "Continue firing, Spartan."

He didn't have to be told twice. Holding down the trigger, he dumped the remaining ammunition at the target, who weathered it all – with nary a scratch on her body.

"Reload, new mag."

Once again, he barely questioned it. Ejecting the previous magazine, Samuels slammed a fresh one home, and this time emptied the entire thing in one go. No damage. A small smile crossed the woman's face, and the Spartan took a few steps back.

"Who- what- who the hell are you?"

The lady opened her mouth to speak, only to be cut off by the CO in the observation post. "That's classified."

"Move onto the next weapon, Spartan."

Stepping back even further, Peter ejected the now useless magazine, racked the slide, and clicked the safety on, before putting the MA5D down on the bench. Next weapon was… a BR85.

He picked it up, grabbed three magazines for it, and stepped back onto the range.  
 **-  
THREE MINUTES LATER**

' _What. The flying. Fuck._ '

The woman had literally shrugged off an entire SAW to the chest. 144 rounds, no damage incurred… to her body. Her BDU, on the other hand, had most definitely seen better days. Enough was enough, time to call in reinforcements.

Without thinking, he toggled his helmet's comm unit.

"Rich, haul ass to the second testing range. There's something I need help with."

A moment's pause, then – over the sound of angry spluttering on Line One – his teammate's voice. "What, can't aim for shit again?"

"No, chucklehead, something else. You're going to want to see this."

"Oscar mike. Want me to-"

"No, just you."

 **FIVE MINUTES LATER**

INFINITY SCIENCE - COVENANT R&D LABS

"Can you move a bit further? You're blocking the light."

"Whoops. Apologies."

"Thank you."

Floating above the table, a Covenant Plasma Pistol was in the process of being disassembled. One of many that had been recovered during their last operation, this one was being studied in order to potentially create a more modular version – something that could possibly be mounted on various UNSC weapons. To be fair, were it not for the Huragok assisting in the endeavor, the alien weapon would have most likely been wrecked by now, as what seemed to be the norm for previous attempts at doing the same.

Spartan Matt Clarke was there for three reasons. One, it was his team that brought that particular pistol back on board. Two, it was good to see progress being made – and if he could learn anything about the technologies of his enemies, that was good to know as well. And three – and this is debatable, no matter what Richard Michaelson would say – is that he could spend time with a certain individual.

Doctor Melanie Norman Hosanna. It wasn't anything terribly serious yet – they had just met, after all, during an assault on Galileo Base. The Covenant had literally parked a cruiser off the coast, which sent kamikaze Banshees directly into the teeth of the defenses in order to overwhelm them, while multiple strike teams of Covenant shock-troopers climbed up from the beach. The Covie ship didn't last long once a Strident popped up, and Fireteam Apex was sent in to clear the base of the elite lance.

The Covies got damn close to breaching one of Galileo's bunkers before being dealt with, but what was important is that they failed in their task to do so.

Melanie turned to him, ecstatic, her thumb up – and was promptly interrupted by a voice coming from his helmet. Both of them turned to fix it with a glare, before sighing.

"Duty calls, it seems. You just let me know what happens, huh?" Picking up the armor piece, he slid it on, walking out of the room.

"What is it-?"

" **DUDE! YOU SHOULD TOTALLY COME CHECK THIS OUT!** " Spartan Michaelson's voice echoed through his head.

"First off, tone the volume down. Second, what did I say about calling me 'dude'? We're Spartan-IVs, not fraternity kids-"

"This chick's totally AWESOME, though! Get down to Test Range Two! You HAVE to see this!"

"Oscar Mike. Want me to pick up anything as I trek over half the ship to get to you?"

"Nah, just get here!"

"I swear, if this is just to show off again-"

He began to sprint.

 **SEVEN MINUTES LATER  
OUTSIDE TESTING RANGE #2**

Spartan Clarke slid to a stop before turning the corner, in order to maintain his image as a well-trained fireteam leader. The two Marines at the end of the hallway – members of Captain Lasky's honor guard – saluted him as he approached… and then moved to bar his way.

"You can't go in. Classified work is being done here."

"I was summoned here by my team, though-"

"Classified means classified."

"I… see. Apologies. I'll just wait out here, then."

"No, you'll wait one deck up from here. This entire area is supposed to be sealed off-"

"So that's why I had trouble with the door. Might want to have mai-" He cut himself off, an idea forming in his head. "One deck up, you say? Fine. But when Spartan Michaelson gets out of there, make sure you give him a good verbal smackdown for wasting my time."

There was no answer from the Marines. With one final salute, he bid them farewell – and immediately headed for the lift.

Oh, sure, he'd go up a bit… but just enough to reach the maintenance passageways…

 **TWO MINUTES LATER**

"Come on, Apex LEAD, where the hell are you…"

"Almost…" A series of grunting noises followed, as well as a hollow thunking. "Almost… there. Couple of Marines outside forced me to…" More grunting. "Find an alternate… passage…"

"Only one way in and out of this room, sir-"

"And that is why you look at the schematics, Staff Sergeant. There's a maintenance shaft… that connects the testing range… to the deck above it…"

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

"You know, if I wasn't wearing my armor, this would probably hurt a lot more."

"…What do you-"

Next to the target-lady, a panel came half-loose from the ceiling, with a pair of armored legs sliding clear, followed by a torso- and then stopping.

"…Oh bloody… friggin' really?"

Clarke heard laughter beneath him as he swung in place. The damn vent got too goddamn tight near the end. The twin thrusters on the back of his armor were bloody wedged on the lip – and with that, he knew he was stuck…

…Until he felt something grab him by the ankles and pull, bringing his helmet into contact with the wall – and gravity doing the rest.

"SHIIIIT!" He heard himself yell as the thruster mounts slid free, performing a perfect faceplant onto the firm, unyielding, gunnery-range floor. Five seconds passed… and then he groaned. "Yep. Would have hurt a lot more without armor."

Getting back onto his feet, Clarke turned around. "Thanks for that-" He stopped. It wasn't any of his team that had helped – instead, a rather young woman looked back at him. "Uh."

"Come on, LT! Get over here!"

"Right. Of course. Right." Still looking at the woman's face, he pointed towards his team. "You should, ah, probably move."

The woman only shook her head.

"Wha- no, you should move. I mean, you're blocking our sho-" Clarke looked to the left. There was no target put up on the other side of their firing lane – just the standard thick bulkhead. His eyes shot back to the lady – and noticed her state of dress. The BDU she was wearing had been damn near shot to pieces. Deep within, he felt anger rising up in his gut as pieces started to click into place. "No, no, no… what the fu… no."

Whipping around, he started to advance on his team. "What the FUCK do you think you're doing?"

"Captain Lasky's orders, sir!"

"Captain Lasky would not assign you to the task of shooting at somebody until their goddamn vest fell apart-"

A rocket sped past him with a low whoosh, detonating shortly afterwards. No goddamn vest could stand up to that. He froze, blinked once. Twice. It took all his willpower to force himself to look behind him, expecting to see the bloody stump of what was once a young woman, now not more than a macabre collection of pieces. He was bewildered by what he actually saw.

She hadn't even stumbled. True, a section of the clothes on her waist no longer existed, and she had a rather annoyed look on her face – but the projectile hadn't penetrated.

"…The fuck?"

"See, LT? Nothing to worry about-"

"I say there's something to worry about… who the bloody hell are you?"

"As ineffective as it may be, Spartan, that's classified to hell and back." Commander Palmer's voice echoed throughout the room. He automatically stiffened, snapping off a salute, before sprinting the last few meters out off of the firing lane. Beside him, the two wayward members of his fireteam went back to their work of shooting at what appeared to be a civilian…

"So, you're testing out some kind of energy shield?"

"That's exactly what I thought at first, too. And then, well…" Spartan Samuels shrugged. "Check this out." Raising a DMR to his shoulder, he fired off a spread of shots, all of which hit the lady's now-exposed shoulder. All the shots bounced off. "See?"

"I see that I've most likely gone stark raving mad and this is all some crazy dream in my head as I'm being tied down somewhere in an asylum…" Clarke stated, as he watched – as if from a distance – as his teammates continued to shoot…  
' _I didn't survive that last mission, did I?_ '  
 **-**

THREE MINUTES LATER

The two Spartans – Samuels and Michaelson – had gone through damn near the entirety of the UNSC infantry arsenal. Even breaking out the chainguns seemed to have little effect…

The woman, too, seemed to be getting bored of the display, and voiced her opinion on it. Clarke was quick to agree, if only so that his team would stop what they were doing. This was…wrong. And then Michaelson said it.

"Hey, boss, you should get Jeremy down here."

"What? Hell no."

"Yeah, LT. Get Martinez down here… and tell him to bring Jeb."

"You heard what Palmer said. This shit is classified. Hell, I'm thinking I should have just listened to those Marines outside and told you to-"

"Hey! MARTINEZ!" The shout damn near echoed over TEAMCOM. "GET YOUR ASS DOWN TO TEST RANGE TWO! BRING JEB WITH YOU!"

"Goddamnit, Michaelson."

 **FIVE MINUTES LATER**

The woman seemed to be completely oblivious as to her approaching doom. While the shooting had stopped – thankfully – it was more or less due to the fact that doing so was now a complete waste of ammunition. Lieutenant Clarke could feel Palmer's eyes boring into him from behind the wall of the observation room for not keeping his team under control.

"You do realize that he won't be able to get in, right? The Marines outside won't let him through – and he won't go to the same lengths as me to do so. Jeb ain't going to fit through that maintenance shaft, at least, not at the same time as Jeremy…"

The door slid open. Clarke froze, his eyes closing – deep breath – and then opening. He turned around.

Sergeant Jeremy Martinez stood in the doorway, both Marines ramrod straight, saluting the SIV. He entered, each step deliberate, before bringing Jeb forward.

The massive rifle had been altered since the last time he had seen it. With a click, the long tube covering the barrel split into two distinct pieces, wisps of orange energy wafting between them, before snapping into place again – this time on the top and bottom of the rifle.

"Who summons forth Jeb?" Jeremy stated in a monotone voice. Not one for overarching theatrics, the sniper of Fireteam Apex had a near-constant appearance of boredom on his face. Even in battle, he remained calm and collected – even when their position was once being shelled by what felt like an entire battalion of Wraith self-propelled artillery platforms. Even when he climbed onto a Mgalekgolo and stabbed it to death with a scavenged energy sword. Even when shit went completely and utterly pear-shaped, his face still remained as impassive as it did now.

"SPARTAN-IV-319, Staff Sergeant Richard Dixon Michaelson! I call forth the _Rifle of Judgement_ to pass such upon this target!"

Martinez moved into the room, already reaching into his armored bandoleer to retrieve one of his Jeb-rounds – a 37 millimeter monstrosity that should have absolutely no place being put into an infantry rifle.

Clarke compared it to watching a train wreck in motion – he knew what was coming, but something within him just didn't want to get in the way of it. His visor depolarized, and he slowly turned his head towards the woman, hoping she would see the look of pure terror on it and be smart – call the whole thing off quickly. No such luck. Another look at the observation room… Glassman mirrored him perfectly. And Palmer… holy shit, that look on her face. That was… vengeance.

In a smooth movement, a tripod snapped into place on the bottom of Jeb, anchoring it to the table one lane over. He then unshouldered his rucksack and pulled something from it… the miniature reactor from a spare suit of MJOLNIR GEN2. Yet another thing that Jeb required to function at maximum potential. Connecting it to Jeb, the rifle seemed to growl with barely contained fury as the magnetic rails within it powered up.

Loading the solid-steel core projectile into place, Martinez racked the slide, and braced the rifle in firing position. It didn't have a scope – but Jeremy didn't need one. He squeezed the trigger – and the whine began.

Less than three seconds later, he released it – the rifle only discharging at thirty percent effectiveness, at least, as per the last time Clarke had been allowed to check it over. Given the obvious Forerunner tech installed into it, he surmised that that had been improved. The projectile roared downrange, coated in a sheen of plasma from its very passage, smashing straight through the metal target – into the bulkhead behind – and onwards. Almost immediately, the lights clicked off… and Roland shimmered into view on the holo-pad. "What the hell was tha… oh. Jeb."

"Yep. How far did it go?" The laconic report was as to be expected from Jeremy.

"Well, let's put it this way. You'll be getting a docked paycheck for damages."

"Wait. We get paid?" Michaelson queried.

"You used to, at least."

"How far. Did it. _Go?_ "

"Be lucky there's an exclusion zone set up around this testing station. One-and-a-half bulkheads. Hit a power cable as well. What went through your mind when you made that gun?"

"Big caliber. Tyrannosaurus rifle. Something to shoot Banshees out of the sky with. _Something to shoot Covie tanks with._ "

"…Please don't fire that off in here again. Go to the vehicle testing range for that."

"Right." Jeremy clicked on the safety, and the gun shut down. Roland disappeared.

"Yeah, Marty… you do realize that wasn't the target to shoot at, right?"

Emergency lighting finally flipped on, followed shortly by secondary power. The engineers who had designed UNSC _Infinity_ had most definitely put in a lot of redundancies. Martinez lifted Jeb from it's perch, detaching the GEN2 reactor and sliding the tripod back into place.

"Eh? Then what was?" He asked, not even bothering to look at his teammate. The Forerunner barrel-coverings slid back to their original position.

His answer was a simple gesture at the woman downrange, who was now staring at the new hole in the wall. Half a meter of solid UNSC Titanium-A alloy didn't do shit to stop the projectile.

An odd look crept over Spartan Jeremy Martinez's face. His eyebrow rose slightly, before he uttered his response.  
"No."  
And with that, Fireteam Apex's sniper left – taking Jeb, but leaving the reactor and his rucksack behind.


	23. Preperations

POV Lasky:

 **UNSC _INFINITY_ – BRIEFING ROOM #11**

"You know if you don't want to do this..."

"Of course I do!" cut in Yamato. "I don't care if that thing has half a century's worth of tech advantage on me, fighting abyssals is pretty much the reason I exist as far as I know. As 'outdated' as I may be, remember that I'm still an entire battleship's worth of armor and armament packed down to human size, making me magnitudes more powerful than even your most elite soldiers -no offense Chief- but I'm the UNSC's best chance at subduing that abyssal since you all seem so keen on studying it or whatever."

Lasky was shocked. That had been a rather heated outburst from the usually reserved and polite Yamato.

"I'm also quite certain that abyssalized Dawn hasn't gotten used to her embodied existence yet. When we last fought, I could tell that something was off with her. Her movements were slow, clunky even, and her aim was inconsistent as well. If MACs really are as accurate as you claim them to be, then Dawn could have easily put that shell straight into my head. This kind of thing happens with all shipgirls when they are first summoned, and since abyssals and shipgirls seem to be two sides of the same coin, then I'm guessing based on past experience that we have only a few days before Dawn reaches her full combat capability."

"Well then" said Lasky. "Your objective is simple. An up-armored ONI Pelican will drop you outside the cave system where Dawn's been hiding out according to satellite data. Interestingly enough, she's being guarded by several ragtag groups of Storm Covenant that have been separated from their main force. How she convinced them to help her is anyone's guess at this point, but I'm willing to bet it's not because she asked nicely. You will be working alongside the Master Chief and Fireteam Apex to subdue Dawn and return her to UNSC custody. Any Questions?

"Wait... wasn't Fireteam Apex the one that spent the better half of an hour shooting me?" asked Yamato

"Yup"

"Well they weren't exactly a shining example of military discipline from what I remember" remarked Yamato. "Are you sure these guys can handle fighting Dawn?"

"Sure they're a little... strange, but they've proved themselves effective in the past, especially when assigned to oddball ops such as this one"

Yamato raised an eyebrow.

"Fair enough"

~o~

POV Master Chief:

 **UNSC _INFINITY_ – BRIEFING ROOM #11**

This was definitely not normal. He usually worked lone-wolf missions, but now he was being assigned to bring down a techno-magical abomination that didn't belong in this plane of existence with some ragtag Spartan IV fire team that had a decidedly strange combat record. And then there was that woman... The Chief really didn't know what to think about her.

~o~

 **UNSC _INFINITY_ – BRIEFING ROOM #18**

Fireteam Apex – still in full armor – marched inside the room, coming to standard parade rest before saluting their commanding officer, and then taking off their helmets. "Commander Palmer. You requested us?"

"Yes. Due to your team's lack of… restraint, you stand qualified as some of the few soldiers on this ship to know the truth about this woman."  
On cue, the image of the woman from the firing range appeared on the briefing table. "This is Yamato. Does the name mean anything to you?"

A second passed. "Only thing comes to mind is that five-star hotel in Yokohama. Good food, good service..." Michaelson said, his voice slowly trailing off.

Clarke cleared his throat. "No, ma'am."

Roland's image flickered up next to Yamato's. "Well, do you remember your history classes?"

"Yes, sir."

"Think back to the late 20th Century."

Martinez spoke up. "The battleship?"

"Certainly was armored like one," Michaelson chimed in.

"Some new AI combat platform? Replacements for conventional soldiers on the field of battle?" Clarke asked.

"Something like that. Now, I won't pretend to know how the eggheads did it, but somehow they've managed to condense the firepower of a battleship into a single soldier. The result is this – Yamato. Captain Lasky's taken a liking to her, and she seems friendly enough, but don't let your guard down around her, copy that? If you've been wondering why Spartan Hoya on Majestic has been riding a cot for the past four days, it's because of her."

Every single member of Fireteam Apex took in a sharp breath at this. "So what are we here for? To take her out if she goes hostile?"

"No. The opposite, actually. You're being assigned to guard duty for her. You'll still be taking orders from me, but you'll be treating her as a VIP – a friendly high-value individual. Wherever she goes, you'll go."

"Affirmative, Commander. Is that all?"

"Once again, no. She'll soon be deployed on a mission – the retrieval of enemy-controlled UNSC technology. A frigate, to be exact. Your mission is to render fire support for Yamato and the Master Chief."

Rick cut in before anybody else could speak. "Wait. We're running fire support for the Chief?"

"Don't let it get to your head, Sergeant."

"Yeah, but… the Chief!"

"Listen to your team lead, Spartan Michaelson. This particular frigate is mobile, hostile, and equipped with experimental technology…"

The bottom abruptly fell out of Spartan Clarke's gut. He could put two and two together quite well – and from what Commander Palmer had said earlier…

"The frigate is from the same production line as Yamato, isn't it?"

The Commander sighed. "Yes. From what we can tell, this was some sort of ONI black-ops project – using Forerunner technology to create man-portable anti-ship weaponry. It went wrong-"

"Yeah, I'm seeing that."

"-And now we're left to pick up the pieces. From what we've been able to decipher, only one was produced before the Covenant hit the ONI station. Yamato was off-site when this happened. Hinge-heads destroyed the station, killed the personnel, and hauled the frigate off to here, where they managed to activate it. Now, we don't know how or why it's managed to ally with Covies, but it sure as hell doesn't like us. And it definitely doesn't like Yamato."

Palmer sighed again, reaching underneath her desk to withdraw a ten-centimeter shell. "We had to dig this out of Yamato's internals. It's some form of micro-MAC round-"

"With some very interesting readings and specifications, if I may add. This particular round, when we first discovered it, seemed to be shifting from its' current properties to those matching a full-size Charon-class frigate's MAC projectile." Roland interrupted.

Clarke coughed uncomfortably. "So you're sending us – and the Chief - up against a hostile frigate. Are we going to be in temporary command of our own?"

"If it were up to me, I'd assign a Strident to a hunter-killer mission and simply destroy the damned thing. But ONI wants their tech back – and they're the ones calling the shots here, not me or Lasky."

"Still, Commander, this is suicide. For all of us." Clarke replied.

"Not quite. According to the intel we just got, the Frigate won't reach full combat capability for another few days. Right now, it's weak, and with Yamato's help you should be able to bring it down"

"I still don't like this" grumbled Clarke.

"Well neither do I. Mysterious black ops project that nobody's heard about until now - Detailed "intel" on our target that seemingly came out of nowhere - It's pretty obvious that High command is hiding something. Regardless, it's not our job to question orders, it's our job to follow them. Meet up at the launch bay armory in four hours. Dismissed!"

The four members of fire team Apex saluted before turning and marching out of the briefing room.

POV Martinez:

Four hours left him little time to piece together his new project. Jeremy flipped through the mental checklist and recalled the first item he would need to acquire. The gunsmith frowned. Now where on the _Infinity_ would he find a high energy - low mass power source?

 **UNSC _INFINITY_ – INFINITY SCIENCE LABS**

 **COVENANT R &D DIVISION**

"Doctor Hosanna."

The scientist in question let out a yelp and spun around, clutching her clipboard. The armored figure stood tall in the doorway, staring impassively at her.

"I need more power."

The scientist's eyes widened, and her eyebrows proceeded to enter orbit. "More pow- what the hell for?"

"Gun."

"What."

"Gun. Need more power. Need Sentinel power cell."

The scientist seemed to freeze, before sighing in relief. "Well, you're in the wrong place. This is the research and development division for studying and reverse-engineering _Covenant_ technology, not Forerunnner tech."

"Really?"

"Yes, uh…"

"Huh. Have good day then."

And with that, the Spartan turned on his heel and marched away.

 **FOUR HOURS LATER**

 **UNSC _INFINITY_ \- LAUNCH BAY 38**

"Martinez!" Clarke shouted, noticing the approach of the fourth member of his fireteam. "Thought we'd be deploying without you, what took you... so long..."

He noticed the barrel of the theropod rifle sticking up above Jeremy's head. The crazy bastard's also carrying his looted energy sword, and... is that a Splazer lashed to his hip?

"Where the hell have you been?" yelled Rick. "We've been trying to raise you on comms for nearly an hour!"

Martinez remained quiet, unclipped his newest creation from the magnetic hardpoints of his armor, and laid it out in front of him for all to see.

"What th-"

"Busy." Interrupted Martinez, clearly intending for the massive weapon that he'd procured to do the explaining for him.

The other three members of fire team Apex stood still in awe.

Clarke was the first one to speak.

"I never thought I'd ever say these words, but I think you just outdid Jeb."

Rick was next.

"Thought the objective was to take the target alive" He chucked nervously. "I mean, our target's supposed to be as tough as a full-on frigate, but damn, that thing looks like you ripped the cannon off a tank and beefed it up with Forerunner tech!"

"Yep." stated Martinez in his ever-present monotone. "Don't worry 'bout lethality. I'll just peg it in the leg."

Martinez clearly had no intention of doing any such thing, and everyone on fire team Apex knew it.

Suddenly, a red klaxon above the hanger doors blared.

"Time to move out, then," announced Clarke. "Let's go bag a frigate."

"Or get put in bags ourselves," muttered Samuels. Clarke chose not to respond to that.

Following his team to the up-armored pelican, Martinez looked across the hanger and saw that both Yamato and Chief had been given personal transport Pelicans as well.

With difficulty, Martinez lugged his massive weapon, which he had dubbed "Big Bad John" in honor of his brother who had died in a Covenant attack many years ago, into the transport bay of the Pelican.

 _'Here we go, bro,'_ thought Martinez as the hangar doors opened to reveal the void of space, interrupted only by the pinpricks of distant stars.


	24. Shootdown

**SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
ONI D79S-TC PELICAN ECHO-41  
EN ROUTE TO MISSION DEPLOYMENT ZONE**

A warning siren shrilled loud into Yamato's ear. The interior of the pelican went dark, then glowed a dull red as the emergency generator was activated. Yamato could feel the airframe of the stricken aircraft shudder.

The pilot's panicked voice blared through the craft's comm system.

"Brace for impact! 15 seconds!"

Another series of violent bumps snapped Yamato out of her safety harness and crashing onto the titanium floor of the Pelican. She struggled to her feet and hauled herself to the single armored window at the rear of the troop compartment, where she saw a trail of smoke leading away from the right side of the Pelican.

Yamato felt her stomach lurch as the Pelican's pilot performed one last desperate maneuver to try and save the wounded machine. Was it going to be enough? Another look out the window told her that it probably wasn't going to be. This was going to hurt.

~o~

 **UNSC _INFINITY_ (INF-101)  
BRIDGE**

"Yamato's Pelican has been hit!"

"Shit!" exclaimed Captain Lasky. "By what?"

"Covenant triple-A, sir!"

"Patch in video feed from Golf-33 and the Chief!"

~o~  
 **  
SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
ON FOOT TO RENDEZVOUS LOCATION**

Chief watched from the ground as Yamato's Pelican was consumed by fire. A ground launched fuel rod cannon had struck the transport directly on the wing. No amount of ONI up-armoring could have repelled that.  
"Captain's requesting a live feed," said an operator's voice through the Chief's comm system. "Patching him through now."

~o~

 **UNSC _INFINITY_ (INF-101)  
BRIDGE**

The operation's command staff composing of him and several other officers watched in horror as Yamato's flaming Pelican struck Requiem's surface at almost a ninety degree angle. A massive fireball blossomed up from the point of impact. Small bits of superheated Pelican scattered across the rocky landscape, making pockmarks on the ground wherever they landed.

Lasky winced. Even for someone like Yamato, an impact like that would be nigh-unsurvivable.

Osman, on the communications link from UNSC _Port Stanley_ , gave a slight wince at the outcome, before turning her gaze to fix Lasky with a pointed stare. No words issued from her mouth, but the look was all that was needed.

 _'So much for your 'battleship'.'  
_

~o~  
 **  
SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
WRECKAGE OF ONI D79S-TC PELICAN ECHO-41**

Yamato awoke to the sound of sizzling. She slowly opened her eyes and saw that burning fuel oil was dripping from a smashed conduit onto her cheek. The whole crumpled interior of the downed Pelican was ablaze and open flames nipped at her exposed skin. _'The pilot...'_ thought Yamato. Deep down she knew that a normal human had no chance of surviving such an impact, let alone the heat, but yet she still had to try. She managed to stumble to her feet and make her ways across the shattered Pelican towards the cockpit. An intense wall of flame stood in between Yamato and the pilot, but she trudged through it, shielding her eyes with her arms.

Yamato reached the small door separating the Pelican's cargo bay from the cockpit. An armored window was once mounted on this door, but it had long since melted into slag and was dripping across the floor. Yamato peered through this opening, not at all prepared for what she was about to see.

A disfigured corpse lay sprawled at the controls of the doomed transport. Barely recognizable as human, the impact had torn him limb from limb. Yamato knew that if the intense heat of the burning fuel hadn't reduced what was left of the pilot into hunks of smoking carbonized flesh, the scene would have been even more gruesome.

Even as it was, the sight was enough to make Yamato gag. She wanted to run, to get the hell away from there, but she still had one job she had to complete. Whimpering, she slowly extended her arm through the opening towards the pilot's mutilated neck, whereupon she quickly snagged his dogtags – and the soft tug of retrieving them caused what remained of the dead man's pulverized head to slip off the residue of the body and fall onto the ground.

She delicately held the thin slices of metal in the palm of her hand – forcing the image of the immolated and dismembered body out of her mind – and wiped away the soot covering what had been inscribed.

EVANS  
JONES D.  
343-87327-41381 ONICLASS  
UNIVERSAL  
NO PREFERENCE

"Evans," she muttered to herself. "Thank you for your service."

Another fuel conduit ruptured close to Yamato, bathing her in flames and burning oil.

 _'I can't withstand this kind of heat for much longer,'_ thought Yamato. She had to get out of there.

Backing up against the wall to give herself extra space, Yamato launched herself shoulder-first at the weakened side bulkhead of the wrecked Pelican. It gave way to her strength like so many layers of tissue paper, and Yamato blasted out of the burning troop transport, where she was immediately met by a wall of green plasma.

The shots missed her, but they impacted close enough to make her cry out in pain. Unlike the flames of a fire, the tendrils of plasma emitted by Covenant weaponry were hot enough to burn Yamato's skin.

Coughing, sputtering, and still somewhat on fire from being coated in burning aviation fuel, Yamato turned towards her assailant.

Glistening a bright gold in the light of Requiem's star, a Covenant Anti-Air Wraith rumbled its way towards her, its complement of six upsized fuel rod cannons charging for another salvo.

Following a cold line of logic, Yamato quickly concluded that this Wraith was what shot down her Pelican. That meant it was also responsible for the death of the pilot.

"No mercy," she growled.

A burning anger flashed into Yamato's eyes. She didn't have her combat rigging on, but that thought never even crossed her mind as she charged towards the Wraith at flank speed.

~o~

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
ONI D79S-TC PELICAN – GOLF-33**

"Goddamnit!" Lieutenant Clarke swore, already moving to the back of the transport craft. "Samuels, get ready! Get us as close as you can, but keep an eye out!"

"They will not live an hour longer." Sergeant Martinez stood up from his seat, already reaching upwards to the gun rack above and pulling out… Jeb.

At any other time, Clarke would have pondered upon when the hell that 'rifle' had been loaded up without being noticed – or how he had not noticed its presence prior to that moment – but his mind was otherwise occupied with thoughts of unconstrained rage.

"Change of plans, Corporal! Get us in a good visual position, flip us around, and crack the hatch!"

The Pelican abruptly dropped almost straight down, rapidly bleeding off altitude. Both Clarke and Martinez briefly lifted off the floor of the troop bay before activating their mag-boots – and just in time, too, for the feeling of spinning suddenly gripped them as the rear door slipped open.

And Yamato, blazing fire like an avenging angel, smashed through the side of the crashed Pelican, barely dodging a second salvo from the Covie mobile anti-air platform in front of her, which slagged the remainder of the Pelican's central fuselage.

"Holy shit!"

"YEAH! FUCK YEAH!"

Martinez threw himself forward, snapping the protective barrel of the Forerunner-enhanced coil-rifle open even as he skidded onto the ramp – and stopped as his armor's mag-clamps held him firmly in place. The tripod snapped down, clamping onto the far edge of the ramp.

"KICK THEIR FUCKING ASS, HOTEL!"

Once again, under other circumstances, Clarke would have pondered on what his team was saying. At the moment, however, all he could think of doing was grabbing his DMR from the gun rack, mag-locking himself in place next to his gun-crazy teammate, and feeding him the necessary targeting data. Jeremy himself had attached some sort of glowing crystal to the rifle's power feed.

Yamato had finally started moving again – seemingly disoriented upon first emerging from the wrecked aircraft, she had apparently regained her senses and began to close with the anti-air Wraith.

With graceful movements, she dodged the self-propelled triple-A battery's fuel rods, narrowing the distance between both combatants. Contrary to what Clarke expected, the Covenant armored vehicle wasn't backing away in order to keep firing – instead it was moving closer itself.

"Oh shi- MARTINEZ, _TAKE THE SHOT_ -"

Martinez fired – faster than Jeb had ever charged before. The Wraith boosted forwards. Yamato put her shoulder down and charged directly into the oncoming ram.

42 tons of Covenant nanolaminate met 72,000 tons of furious Japanese steel. The nanolaminate lost.  
The front of the Wraith bent inwards under the impact, crushing the driver within between the reinforced armor of the front and the engine block in back.

Said engine block suddenly developed a thirty-seven millimeter hole straight through it and out the other side. The now-defunct Covenant artillery vehicle continued to move – backwards, propelled by the woman now nestled within the dented reinforced frontal armor, even as the anti-gravity drive failed and the vehicle hit the ground… and promptly half-flipped up-and-over, the rear of the Wraith digging a furrow into the ground.

Less than a second later, it was airborne again, having been launched backwards by what could have possibly been an upwardly-directed punch from Yamato. Clarke followed it with his DMR's scope as it flew, watching as it soared – directly into another Covenant artillery position, this one aimed directly at them.  
Newton's First Law reared it's head. The improvised kinetic projectile smashed directly into the second Wraith, enshrouding both in a rising plume of plasma – and both continued to tumble for some distance afterwards, crushing a Sangheili General standing to the side.

Clarke lay speechless, his mind still processing what had just happened. Martinez brought his rifle around again, having loaded in another shell, and fired – drilling a third artillery emplacement and rendering it temporarily unusable. The Pelican began to move again.

' _Hey. Hey, Matt. Mental note. Don't ever, ever, piss off that woman._

 _~o~_

 **UNSC _INFINITY_ (INF-101)  
BRIDGE**

Still on comms link to Infinity, Osman stared slack jawed at the absolute carnage being displayed on her screen.

Lasky, quite amused by this point, looked at her and raised an eyebrow. His smug look said it all: _'I told you so'._

 _~o~_


	25. Analysis of an Anthro-Battleship

_Author's Note: Hey look, I'm not dead, and neither is this fic! Work's been crazy and now that I finally have a break I thought I might as well try and finish up the first arc of HoS. Be on the lookout for new chapters coming soon._

 _On a side note, if there's anything that you really want to see happen in this fic, PM me and I'll do my best to fit it in somewhere (maybe an omake if it's_ _having Yamato arm wrestle the Arbiter or something crazy like that). And yes, this means I'm taking shipping (pun intended) requests._

 _Also, I know this fic is not nearly popular enough to deserve its own TvTropes page, but if someone out there wants to help me make one... ;)_

 _Enjoy the bonus chapter!_

The following are excerpts taken from an academic study done by Dr. Lillian Faye, a renowned quantum physicist and materials researchers at the ONI academy of sciences on Arcadia III. This study focuses on ONI special interest subject number 237 designation "Yamato" and her unique abilities.

All of the conclusions reached under this research paper are based on various biological/mechanical testing data received from INF-101 Infinity while the subject was incapacitated and contained in the medbay and during a voluntary weapons test. Addiditonal information was received from combat footage of the subject as well as a sensor suite unknowingly attached to her uniform.

Page 327, paragraph 2, sections 8-27: Subject Durability

"Though it is widely known that the subject possesses extreme resistance to all manner of damage including blunt trauma, short and long duration extreme heat, and piercing attacks, the subject's apparent durability can actually shift depending on the situation. When the subject is out of combat and completely unprepared, she is much more vulnerable to damage, as best exemplified when the subject received moderate bruising from a 20 mm APDS round fired at her from a concealed position (See Archived Footage CFA #11432 and CFA # 11434). In contrast, the subject claimed that she couldn't even feel the impact of larger 30 mm rounds during weapons testing (See Archived Footage CFA #12872). Along with multiple other data points, we have come to the conclusion that the subject at her most vulnerable has protection equivalent to that of a STANAG level 9+ AFV, or approximately that of an M808B UNSC Scorpion tank. The upper limits of her durability have yet to be observed, but based on several feats including surviving a close range detonation of an archer missile and taking repeated strikes from a type-1 energy sword and Promethean hardlight blade without injury, we can only assume that her durability while she is aware of possible threats reaches that of the battleship that she is named after."

Subject Durability (cont.)

"The subject's heat resistance is a very curious trait indeed. Unlike her other measurable abilities, this trait seems very consistent. Whether she's on full combat alert or completely unconscious, the subject's resistance to extreme heat and flames remains a constant.

This particular attribute was tested in detail aboard the Infinity. The subject voluntarily complied to an experiment in which her right hand was placed on a tungsten plate that was slowly heated through the use of induction. The subject reported no discomfort until the plate reached a temperature of 1,900 degrees F and no pain until the plate reached a temperature 2,750 degrees F. The subject yanked her hand away from the plate at 2,900 degrees F, presumably because it was too painful to keep in contact with the plate, which had long since begun to glow a bright orange. The tests indicate that the subject would be completely immune to temperatures produced by all normal fires, including those caused by oil or jet/rocket fuel. However, this does indicate that the subject is vulnerable to covenant plasma weaponry, which from reviewed combat footage can easily char or burn the subject's skin by exposing her to temperatures well in excess of 5,400 degrees F."

Page 488, paragraph 9, sections 3-18: Subject Strength

"Like her resistance to damage, the subject's strength seems to change based on the situation. Onboard the infinity, she struggled to lift an artillery ammunition crate weighing in at 10 tons while during combat she was able to hurl a 48 ton covenant type-26 wraith a distance of over 150 meters. A quick calculation of this feat puts her estimated maximum power output of around 112 mW or 150,000 horsepower."

Page 272, paragraph 13, sections 54-61: Subject Speed

"While her maximum running speed is no doubt superhuman, clocking in at around 35 MPH, it pales in comparison with the magnitude of her other abilities as well as the top speed of an ONI Spartan in MJOLNIR. The one outstanding thing about the subject in this aspect is her endless endurance. She can keep at her maximum speed for an indefinite period of time without even showing the slightest sign of overexertion. However, this is countered by the fact that the subject's reaction time is remarkably average, comparable to that of a well trained UNSC marine. This is further backed up by combat footage taken from Sierra-117's helmet cam, which shows the subject's inability to track and avoid needler projectiles, which are usually easily dodged by some of the faster spartans. Should the subject ever need to be detained, exploiting her weakness in this area would crucial to success."

Page 96, paragraph 1, sections 101-113: Subject Weapons Proficiency

"The subject's preferred weapons are her unique ring-mounted cannons, which have been observed to manipulate quantum mechanics to fire a shell with KE comparable to that of a large bore naval cannon's. These shells are incredibly deadly and are capable of catastrophically killing heavy combat vehicles even with a near miss. A single shell from one of these cannons is estimated to have a concrete-piercing capability of 30 feet, meaning that it could theoretically pierce a UNSC medium level infantry bunker. Having firepower of this magnitude mounted on a weapons system so small is unprecedented, to say the least."

Subject Weapons Proficiency (cont.)

"The subject can use standard and heavy UNSC firearms, but lacks proficiency in them (See Archived Footage CFA #9872). Despite lack of familiarity with them, she was able to adapt and use UNSC weapons with a fair degree of effectiveness. It can be deduced from this that the subject is an unnaturally quick learner, at least with regards to weapons systems and their operation."

Subsection 7: Combat Style

"From wherever she originated from, the subject is obviously trained to be a heavyweight bruiser, which is a role not at all indicated by her slim and delicate appearance. However, looks can be deceiving: She prefers to engage the enemy head on, seeking minimal cover and relying greatly on her natural resistance to damage to keep her out of harms way. If at all possible, the subject will close range with the enemy and start a melee duel with them, a fight that the subject will undoubtedly win."

Subsection 11: Personal Traits

"With an extreme sense of honor and respect to military authority, the subject is fiercely loyal to whatever cause she may be fighting or. The subject also values human life above all else, even her own, and will go to great lengths to save even a single allied soldier from death even if it means sustaining great injury to herself. UNSC psychoanalysts conclude that the subject bears a large amount of guilt, though the origins of this are completely unknown."

Subsection 12: Analysis of combat effectiveness

"The subject possesses a 'base form' in which her strength, speed, and resistance to damage are the lowest, but still far surpassing any infantry unit we have yet encountered, hunters and Prometheans included. Since her attributes while in this form are comparable to a heavy armored fighting vehicle while still retaining the size, agility, and dexterity of a human, this makes her incredibly deadly. Things only get worse from here. The subject is able to increase both her strength and durability seemingly on command to levels that are simply absurd, even considering forerunner ground units, for her size. Perhaps the most important piece of information about subject 237 gleaned from this study is in regards to her variable ability levels. When the subject increases her durability and strength past that of her 'base' form, it is physically draining on her. During combat, the subject seems to produce some kind of adrenaline like compound that makes it much easier for her to maintain a more powerful form. Thus, the highest level of her abilities are reserved only for combat situations."

Subsection 17: Conclusion

"Given what we know about her, Subject 237 should be classified as a level 5++ CPE-OU (Combat Proficient Extraterrestrial - Origin Unknown), a designation given to only one other being (Subject 192 designation "Didact"). Though much about subject 237 remains a mystery to the UNSC, it is safe to say that she still has many surprises in store for us all."


	26. Dawn's Wrath

*In Darth Vader Voice* I find the lack of requests in my inbox most disturbing...

Come on people don't be shy, send em' in.

~o~

Special thanks to SC_Matt!

~o~

 **UNSC INFINITY (INF-101) – IN ORBIT OF SHIELD WORLD REQUIEM**

BRIDGE

The command room was in silence.

Yamato had just rammed a Covenant Wraith... and won...

While Lasky knew that her abilities to do this kind of thing rid a very thin line between quantum physics and magical bullshit, the other members of his staff didn't, and were currently going through the various stages of denial, anger, confusion, and finally acceptance.

 **SHIELD WORLD 0001 – DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
SNIPER POSITION OVERLOOKING MISSION SITE**

The Chief was perched high on a cliff face overlooking the covenant infested arroyo. Like an unseen predator, he stalked his prey with the scope of his weapon.

*CRACK*

A now riderless ghost span out of control and hit the rocky ground, tumbling as it tore itself to pieces.

The Chief lined up another shot with Nornfang, Linda's custom SRS99-S5 that she'd let him borrow for this mission.

*BOOM*

A headless brute toppled over, his spiker firing wildly into the air.

Palmer's voice chimed in over comms. "Keep covering Yamato, she's almost to the cave entrance."

"Roger that," replied the Chief.

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEAWAY'**

An advancing Covenant platoon caught Yamato by surprise- pouring out of the cave's mouth, spearheaded by three red-colored light vehicles, which immediately unleashed a fusillade of fire in her direction.

Dodging a volley of plasma fire, Yamato juked wildly to the side, crashing to the ground behind the cover of a boulder. Fuel rod bolts raced past her and some detonated on the rock she was hiding behind, causing it to violently shatter on top of her. She quickly picked herself up from the rubble up and hurled a large of it at the oncoming covenant counter-attack. The results could have been said to be comical if they weren't so gruesome. Grunts near the sides of the formation were knocked away like bowling pins while the unfortunate ones in the path of Yamato's makeshift projectile were simply crushed. An elite near the rear of the formation roared in indignation before being flattened.

The new set of combat clothes that she had received was custom tailored by a UNSC fabrication lab to resemble her original outfit, with the key difference being that her new clothes were made of a carbon nanomaterial weave that was incredibly tough. Still, sometime between being set on fire and ramming a tank with her body, she had managed to thoroughly wreck them. There were holes torn all over, and parts of the uniform had melted and rather uncomfortably stuck to her skin. Though, Yamato did have to admit it was leagues better than her old fabric uniform. She couldn't count the times that she'd lost her modesty after being hit by just one high explosive abyssal shell back at home.

The only thing that stood between her and Dawn was over a hundred pissed-off religious-extremist aliens. All in all, just another normal day for the techno-magical human battleship.

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
ONI D79S-TC PELICAN – GOLF-33  
ABOVE MISSION SITE DESIGNATE 'DAWN'S HIDEAWAY'**

"On the count of three! One! Two! Three!"

Three shapes ejected out of the Pelican's troop bay as it came around for another attack run against the cluster of Covenant soldiers that were pouring out of the cave.

"Good luck, guys," Spartan Peter Samuels shouted over TEAMCOM as he opened up with the ONI bird's nose-mounted 70mm autocannon, raking a group of Elites with explosive rounds and painting the sand around the impact zone a shade of light purple.

"Yamato, we are inserting thirty meters to your five, six, and seven-o'clock. Just if you're wondering what those bangs will be."

"Bangs-?"

All three SPARTAN-IVs hit the ground at the same time, the emergency thruster units roaring to life just long enough to prevent injuries from the fall before detaching from their armor.

"Martinez-"

A loud whine drowned out whatever Spartan Matthias Clarke might have said next – a blue line originating from Spartan Jeremy Martinez' position, smashing directly into one of the Revenants and shearing straight through it, continuing into the next one just turning around to face Yamato.

Near-simultaneous plasma detonations marked the end of both vehicles.

"…Keep doing what you're doing."

A torrent of seventy-millimeter rounds came down from the sky, cutting through the Covenant ranks as Samuels committed to yet another strafing run. A missile joined the attack, impacting a group of Sangheili. A charred chunk of what looked like a forearm flew past the battleship-given-form, almost smacking Spartan Richard Michaelson in the visor, had he not ducked.

"What the absolute fuck that was-"

All three Spartans abruptly vanished from view, their weapons going silent. Even in the chaos of combat, Yamato picked up on the absence of UNSC gunfire from her rear – and slipping back into cover behind another rock formation, she looked behind her.

There was no sign of the three soldiers anywhere. The Pelican was still performing gun runs, so they hadn't abandoned her – not like that would have been under consideration in the first place. So where-

The familiar snap-whine of that one Spartan's weapon sounded in her ears, somewhere to her eight-o-clock position – and it was quickly joined by an explosion as well. Cracks of rifle fire echoed throughout the gulley again, this time on the Covenant force's right flank.

Less fire was being directed at her position now, and it was time to capitalize on that. Vaulting out of cover towards the Covenant, her fist found its first victim – a Jackal, colliding directly with the alien's shield.

Built to withstand small-arms fire, it was no barricade to over one hundred thousand horsepower being directed at a point no larger than fifteen centimeters. The alien's upper body immediately was reduced to a fine bright-purple mist – and the unfortunate avian next to it soon suffered the same fate.

 **HOLY WORLD OF THE ANCIENTS – 'REQUIEM'  
TREASURY OF THE WARSHIP**

Field Master 'Kralitai rose to his feet. Jul'Mdama had given him a task – capture or destroy the UNSC forward base that had been causing problems for their operations in the area. When he had arrived, however, the human vehicle had already been destroyed. The Demon was also spotted in the area by his scouts, and he had borne down on it with all haste.

What he had found was a human – but not. His vanguard had been annihilated, the not-human disposing of them with contemptuous ease. It had then pursued his force to this area, severing communications with the rest of the Covenant garrison on this planet before descending within the cave system to finish the job – or so he thought.

Instead, it had offered its services – when connected to their local battle-net, it had discovered that she was after the same end-goal as the Storm were: to destroy the _Infinity_ , exterminate her crew, and eradicate her escorts. With the wretch's abilities, they could have expanded their territory, pushed back against the humans, took back land from the infidels – but no. She had to 'master her potential' first.

Even now, his forces were engaged in combat with the humans – including another abominable one – at the very mouth of this cave, and yet she did nothing to help.

"Order our Seraph fighters to eradicate that irritable dropship!"

"Excellency, our Seraphs are gone! You had ordered them to re-establish contact with Supreme Commander 'Mdama, and they have not yet returned."

"Then you will take it down yourself. Arm yourself with whatever weapon you choose, and head to the overwatch. Do not fail in this task, and your family on Resplendent Devotion will be allowed to live another day!"

The Sangheili officer shied away from the command center, cowed into submission.

 **SHIELD WORLD 0001 – DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
OVERLOOK POSITION**

The Pelican buzzed by again, its autocannon churning up the ground at the rear of the Covenant forces.

While effective, they had the unfortunate implication of stirring up large clumps of dust, which would otherwise have compromised the Master Chief's ability to effectively engage in his assigned role – but Nornfang corrected that problem.

Every shot went straight and true. The Grunt lifting a fuel rod to bear on Yamato – blown in two. The Jiralhanae laying down suppressive fire on the impulsive SIV below – now without a head. The red-armored Sangheili emerging from the top of the base, now lacking a chest cavity.

Every shot claimed a life – or multiple. The Chief continued his task with utmost efficiency, now pruning the Covenant soldiers emerging from the cave itself.

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEAWAY'**

A barely noticeable shimmering of air caught Yamato's suspicions for a moment before she decided it was just a result of the harsh sunlight hitting Requiem's rocky surface and heating up the surrounding air. Yamato froze. Wait... she'd definitely seen that kind of thing before... and the last time she did an alien had tried to turn her into a battleship shish-kebab. This wasn't helped by the fact that the "shimmering" was beginning to take on a definitively humanoid shape.

Yamato dodged hard left, but it was too late. A massive blow slammed into her gut, knocking the wind out of her and sending her flying into the canyon wall some 50 feet away. Her impact cratered the wall as she hit it face first at what seemed to be hundreds of miles per hour.

"MMmmmmmmmmph!"

Turns out it's hard to yell for help with a mouth full of hard granite.

Before she could separate herself from the rock, the hammer came down again - hard- driving her head deeper into the rock like a nail into wood. She braced herself for yet another blow, but it never came. Instead, she heard a brutal bellowing over comms – drowning out all other noises – followed by the sound of a hard impact, metal against metal. Something fell to the ground nearby, but the bellowing – now accompanied by something roaring as well – did not cease. Nor did the metallic collision sounds. It wasn't rifle fire – or cannon-fire – but something else entirely.

Yamato found purchase on the rock wall, and began to lever herself out. Cracks developed around her palms as her engines roared, and she abruptly staggered backwards as the stone released its grip.

Turning around, she saw Spartan Martinez, holding the shattered stock of Jeb, bringing it down over and over again onto the pulpy mass of what used to be an alien's head. The broken barrel stuck up from the ape-like creature's heart, apparently forced straight through the armor.

Now hitting sand more often than brain matter, the Spartan showed no sign of stopping. The sound of rifle fire intensified for a few minutes, as the Covenant were forced back to the mouth of the cave.

She looked back at the wall – away from the UNSC soldier, who was inattentive to everything except for digging a hole – and saw a very definitively Yamato-shaped imprint.

Years later, UNSC scientists looking through the simulations taken from Requiem Occupational Campaign records would be absolutely stupefied as to how that got there. The top geologists and forensics analysts in their fields would eventually come to the not-quite-satisfactory conclusion that the imprint was just a cosmic coincidence caused by a form of selective erosion unique to Requiem on the basis that any human, no matter what kind of armor they were wearing powered or otherwise, would have been squished flat against the rock long before such an imprint could have been made. The name of Jul'Mdama would become even more cursed by the respective academic departments, for due to the destruction of Requiem, the one-in-a-million geological formation had been forever lost.

 **HOLY WORLD OF THE ANCIENTS – 'REQUIEM'  
TREASURY OF THE WARSHIP**

That was it. No longer could he rely on his underlings – if he wanted those heretics dead, he would have to do it himself. If that eldritch abomination lurking beneath the ground wanted time to figure out her life's arc, she would have plenty of it.

Kralitai snarled as he stalked up the passage, bracketed by his Mgalekgolo honor guard. Behind him stalked his stealth-fighters – each capable of laying waste to an entire UNSC garrison, each a veteran from the bloodiest battles of the holy war that had ended too soon for victory.

They would deal with this incursion, and deliver punishment to the lineages of those that had failed in their task. This in mind, they approached the entrance to the tunnel network that had served as the high-ranking Sangheili's command post for the past four months, and prepared to exterminate the enemy force beyond-

And then that accursed human craft descended in front of the cave, light flooding into the interior, blinding them, throwing them off-guard-

And then… darkness.

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEAWAY'**

"SAMUELS! STOP SHOOTING! STOP SHOOTING!"

The Pelican began to move off from its position, revealing the now-slightly-widened entrance. So much for even the slightest amount of stealth – their erstwhile pilot had communicated in no uncertain terms that the Covenant detachment assigned to this garrison was no more when he decided to stick the front of his ONI-loaned Pelican into the mouth of the cave and flood the interior with 70mm explosive rounds. That was acceptable. The four _anti-tank missiles_ weren't.

Footsteps behind him signaled the approach of his resident gunsmith – and the battleship-woman. He turned towards the two – and stopped.

The twisted piece of metal in Martinez' hands could only belong to his stupendously overpowered coilgun – Jeb. From the bits of bone and brain matter still crusted onto it, he had apparently used it as a club against something… and given the condition of the weapon, it didn't give easily. Clarke looked towards Yamato, his eyes darting around, trying to notice whether or not there was any sort of damage to her head, if Martinez had snapped and had tried to attack her – but nothing jumped out.

Then he saw Jeremy's face, through his _depolarized_ visor. He was _smiling_.

"Sergeant…?"

"…I'm fine. Don't…" The normally stoic warrior cleared his throat. "Don't bother. Let's just finish this mission."

The cave entrance loomed ahead. Dark and foreboding didn't quite do the entrance justice, especially since Clarke knew what he and his team were walking into. Yamato took point, considering that she was the only one here that could take a 50mm autocannon round to the head without having it reduced to its component atoms.

Samuels remained in the Pelican, now on patrol around the area. If the Covenant attempted to move in behind them, they would have to deal with the gunship first – and if the rogue frigate were to terminate the rest of his fireteam's continued existences, the Spartan pilot could retrieve the Chief and get the hell out of dodge before they met the same fate.

Clarke's worry of the salvo of missiles causing the tunnel to collapse were unfounded. While the rock was blasted away from ground zero of the impact, it revealed the Forerunner material beneath, bearing almost no damage – and after ten seconds of observation, even that disappeared as the material seemed to repair itself.

' _Forerunner tech... If the Covenant were able to gain insight into this technology, then the only reason we ever stood a chance against them was because of religious dogma._ '

A minute of walking brought them to a large chamber, still filled with Covenant consoles. Three dead Sangheili lay on the floor in various stages of dismemberment. Judging by the neatly-severed limbs, they had most likely been killed by energy blades. Even then, it was still unsettling, given what was being held deeper in the facility.

Undoubtedly this was some sort of local Covenant command post. Two particle beam turrets were set up on the far side of the room, pointing at a Forerunner door leading deeper into the complex. Approaching it, Clarke could feel every cell in his body seemingly crawling with revulsion, every footstep becoming more and more difficult to undertake. Beside him, Michaelson seemed to feel the same way, as did Apex's designated sniper, who was currently carrying a rifle taller than anybody in the room.

The particle beam cannons were inactive, their power cells detached from the weapons themselves. Still didn't make SPARTAN-IV-311 feel any better.

As they closed with the door, Yamato still on point, the fireteam kept their wits about them. Scanning the room with Promethean Vision turned up nothing, no cloaked Covenant, no improvised explosive devices, nothing that could pose a threat to them.

With a brief series of snicks, the door fractured apart in the ways that they always did, to reveal a gently sloping path leading deeper beneath the ground – and separate hallways branching off from it.

Normally, Clarke liked walking into Forerunner facilities, as did Samuels whenever he was forced to leave his Pelican behind. This, however, was wrong. Tainted. Almost like the reports from Installation 03 and Installation 05 regarding containment, quarantine, and extermination procedures against the Flood – the very architecture exuding not-so-subtle menace, no longer awe-inspiring but instead warning of hidden danger.

After a minute or so of wandering through the tight corridors of the primary hallway – hoping that the rogue frigate wasn't down another one of the metallic tunnels, now sneaking up behind them – a new problem reared its head. Yamato crossed the threshold of yet another door, and almost immediately an energy field snapped up to bar the rest of the team's passage.

Three more fields flicked into existence, forcing the fireteam to back up rapidly, to prevent being trapped between the barriers – or being caught in their formation.

And then it got worse. The large door at the end of the section that Yamato was in slid apart, extending forward like the fingers of some ravenous giant before slipping into a wing-like formation on each side of the hallway.

And striding down the middle of it was their target. The glowing lines on the floor changed color as she approached, shifting from a light bluish-green to an energetic blue, almost crackling with energy – and then to deepest black as she left that patch behind.

Instincts took over as Clarke froze in terror. This was the rogue frigate, no doubt about it.

Every muscle fiber and nerve ending in his being stood on end while his hyper-perceptive senses screamed _DANGER, DANGER, DANGER,_ into his mind.

She was beautiful, no doubt about that. Her slender form was punctuated by curves that were only accentuated by her dark bodysuit.  
Her eyes burned a gorgeous golden while her obsidian locks shone as they flowed down to her waist.

It was hypnotizing, watching her approach – both from the way she moved, the way she looked, and the way the hallway darkened behind her, as if even the technological power of the Forerunners was no match for her aura.

Under different circumstances, Clarke might have asked for her name, and possibly out on a date – provided, of course, that there was no Melanie Hosanna to run interdiction. If she even would run interdiction.

But he had learned from experience. Beauty was often only skin deep, more often than not. He knew that beside him, Michaelson was probably lost in his own world, captured by the grace of the frigate-woman's movements. Martinez… if he hadn't seen him outside, smiling, even while holding the remains of what was apparently one of his most treasured possessions in his hands, he would have figured the man would still be a stone-cold professional.

The woman approaching them was _wrong_. Wrong to the very depths of her existence. Wrong _wrong_ **_wrong_**. Her hands were stained with blood – figuratively, that is – human blood. UNSC blood.

Letters above her chest revealed her name. _Forward Unto Dawn_. FFG-201. The legendary ship that had brought about the end of the Human-Covenant War, that had returned – at least partially – from her trip outside the Milky Way Galaxy. The ship that had carried the Master Chief to this world, and had sheltered him during his descent through the entrance portal.

There had been the most obnoxious shitstorm brewed up when the UNSCDF command staff had ordered the front of the ship to be scrapped – no, that was a misnomer. She was brought out to the glasslands of East Africa and repeatedly hit, over and over again, with nuclear devices and other ship-killing weapons. 'Possible contaminants', they had said.

Clarke remembered his team being assigned to the Gate, the structure serving as the watchtower for Requiem's Cartographer facility. At times, a few of them had left the structure to head down to the Dawn's crash site, to pay their respects. And then, one day, when they had finally bore witness to one of the UNSC's large industrial reclamation craft entering Requiem and heading to the main crash zone… they had found nothing.

The entire ship, gone almost overnight. Poof. Doctor Benoit had taken two others to the site that night. They didn't report in the next day.

Doctor David Benoit. Two Marines that Clarke hadn't bothered to learn the names of. Lieutenant Gregory Barker. Second Lieutenant Adam Breakfield. Five others that kept the Mammoth designated Sigma Octanus running smoothly. Seven Marines, assigned to that same Mammoth.

All of those deaths, all needless. All on that one frigate that had betrayed them, sullied her hands with friendly fire, _murdered_ those that she was built- designed- _made to protect_.

Looking at her, he knew. This wasn't just some ONI black-ops project. It was something else. Something _worse_. The fact that the creature before him was assuming the name of one of the most heroic ships to have existed in the UNSC navy was just an added insult.

Yamato had turned to face the oncoming threat, her body glowing with its own otherworldly energies. Rings of steel began to form around her back, and with a sharp movement, a wide array of triple-barrel cannons tore their way into existence, along with a fearsome secondary battery and anti-aircraft defense emplacements. As if to complete the odd sight, with what sounded like a few notes from a Japanese wind chime, only much louder, a parasol popped up as well, landing in a slot within the array of weapons.

Meanwhile, the Dawn had completed her transformation as well. Rows of miniature 50 mm point defense turrets dotted her gloved arms while missile pods poked threateningly out from her sides. But most notably, mounted upon one of her shoulders was a massive angular cannon barrel.

"Die," hissed Dawn, and that was all that was needed to snap the fireteam out of their trance, all three immediately seeking cover- all except Martinez, who had now brought his Spartan Laser to bear, even blocked as they were by four energy barriers-

And a hypersonic blast shattered the silence of the Forerunner complex.

~o~

 _Author's Note- The fight you've all been waiting for: coming soon._


	27. Desire

***Flashback***

 **UNSC INFINITY (INF-101) – IN ORBIT OF SHIELD WORLD REQUIEM**

"Hey Chief..."

a small voice called out from behind the super soldier, a voice he knew all to well. Now the better question was what she was doing in his room, especially since he was in the process of taking off his shirt. His chiseled abs flexed as he turned around.

"Yamato, what are you doing h-..."

The Chief was completely lost for words.

She was clad in probably some of the most scandalous lingerie that had ever found its way aboard a UNSC vessel of war, complete with shoulder length black satin gloves and the tiniest microskirt ever made. Her long, gorgeous legs and slim waist were laid bare for all to see.

"Chief, I was thinking that we shou-"

The Chief cut her off.

"Yeah."

 **UNSC INFINITY (INF-101)  
CAPTAIN'S QUARTERS**

Lasky had a really bad feeling today. It was that day of the year again, and something terrible always happened to him on this day. Last year, a massive spider had somehow made its way into his morning coffee cup and he could swear that he could still feel the thing crawling in his nasal cavity, even though it had been surgically removed. The year before that, his mashed potatoes blew up in his face for no reason at all.

Lasky looked at the time. 11:30 PM, only 30 more minutes until he was safe.

Suddenly, the intercom rang. It was a message for him.

 _'oh no... here it comes'_ thought Lasky.

With trepidation, Lasky slowly picked up the receiver.

"Lasky, there have been reports coming from the crew sleeping area about an incessant clanging noise coming from room GQ-1224. It's really loud and sounds strangely metallic. Do you think you could get someone to investigate?"

That sounded like a simple machinery break-down. Due to the ship's complexity and array of untested technology, those kinds of things happened all the time aboard the Infinity.

Looks like he was safe after all. Mid sigh of relief, Lasky froze.

From room GQ-1224, wait a minute... That wasn't a machinery room, it was the Chief's personal quarters! And Yamato hadn't shown up for her scheduled checkup. Add that to the fact that a certain 'article of clothing' was reported missing from the wardrobe of a UNSC civilian contractor...

Lasky was slowly beginning to put it all together.

As his face contorted with horror, he knew that this could only mean one thing...

...

...

...

...

..

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

 **APRIL FOOLS MOTHERF*CKERS!**

 **And yes, before you ask, this is officially canon until exactly April 1, 11:59 PM EST.**

.

.

.

.

.

.

..

...

...

...

...

Lasky kicked open the door to the Chief's room after unlocking it with a swipe of his all-access security guard. He really didn't want to do this, but there would be no battleship babies aboard the Infinity, not on his watch anyway. Wait... how would that even work?

Nevermind that, thought Lasky as he poked his head inside the dimly lit room and saw...

Yamato standing off to the side wrapped in a towel while the Chief noisily worked on what appeared to be a stuck door with a crowbar.

"Oh hey there Lasky" greeted the Chief. "Is there a problem?"

Lasky stood there unanswering, the disparity between _what he was prepared to see_ and _what he actually saw_ was far too great for his mind to process.

"Well if you're wondering why I'm making all of this noise, the laundry robots screwed something up and left Yamato nothing to wear after her shower except for someone else's erm... underwear. I offered her some UNSC fatigues out of my closet, but the damn door is jammed and I've been trying to bash it open for the past few minutes. Who thought that making a closet door out of armor grade bulkhead titanium was a good idea anyways?"

For a moment there was silence. Then, Lasky nodded in understanding.

"Sorry for disturbing you like that Chief, I thought you were up to less morally righteous things."

He swiftly walked away and the door slid closed behind him.

As soon as the door was closed the Chief looked Yamato right in the eye.

"What do you think he meant by that?"

Yamato merely shrugged

"No idea."

 **DOUBLE APRIL FOOLS MOTHERF*CKERS! Admit it, you all thought that Yamato and the Chief were up to no good, didn't you? ;)**

 **But wait, there's more!**

That had been way too close...

 _'I guess that bad thing that always happens on this day to me was just a dumb superstition after all'_ thought Lasky as he strolled to his quarters for some much needed rest.

A sharp, pungent odor suddenly found its way to Lasky's nose.

"What the -"

And why was his leg feeling so tingly all of a sudden.

Lasky looked down and breathed a sigh of defeat and resignation, for his pants were certainly, most definitely, and completely unexplainably on fire.

"godammit"


	28. Duel

**SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEAWAY'**

Yamato stared down the barrel of the very dangerous magnetic accelerator cannon attached to a very dangerous rogue frigate. Motes of blue light collected along the length of the mini-MAC as the coilgun charged up, internal systems likely loading in another experimental armor-piercing time-delayed high-explosive capital killer round. The former UNSC warship's eyes glittered with malice.

Yamato had planned ahead for exactly this contingency, and was rather discreetly rotating all nine of her primaries clockwise while her opponent prepared her main weapon system – as expected.

"Die," hissed Dawn, a manic grin spreading across the corrupted frigate's features, her eyes blazing with arcane malevolence.

A series of near-simultaneous bangs shook the complex, and for a moment silence reigned.

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEWAY'**

SPARTAN-IV-311 threw himself towards his errant teammate, attempting to drag him to the floor of the Forerunner complex before the MAC could discharge – as futile as the act might have been. Spartan Jeremy Martinez was obviously in the grips of target fixation, as shown by his actions in standing directly in the firing line of the goddamn ship-killing cannon.  
And all Spartan Clarke had managed to do was get the both of them killed, as his attempt to get his fellow soldier out of the line of fire failed miserably, with the two supposedly 'super'-soldiers now clustered together.

The MAC round roared downrange towards them, crossing the distance in mere nanoseconds… and impacted the shield barrier separating the SPARTAN fireteam from their supposed charge. The subsequent flare of energy temporarily blinded the team, overwhelming the glare protection systems integrated into their helmets. Only Clarke, facing to the side, was partially unaffected. Partially.

When the glare faded away, the fireteam leader glanced to the side to check what had occurred, releasing his hold on his teammate in favor of raising his own weapon – not like the M395 DMR's 7.62x51mm FMJ-AP ammunition would do anything other than piss the rogue frigate off.

Blind in one eye, he could still see enough, as he stared in disbelief. The shield was still up. Sure, two of the four layers had been stripped away – and as he watched, the third section flickered and died – but it had held. Against an anti-capital kinetic impactor, fired from a supposed Charon-class light frigate.

Spartan Matt Clarke was no top-tier genius, but he understood the science behind kinetic weapons. The standard 83B6R3/MAC round was a five hundred tonne, 150cm bore projectile. Shrink that down to a bore of 95 millimeters without any loss of speed or weight – somehow – and the effect-on-target would increase exponentially.

And the shield preventing access to the fight – or access out of the structure in regards to their target – had just weathered that hit.

He was both grateful and more-than-slightly terrified. Grateful because he and his team had just survived a would-be fatal attack. Terrified because… ' _What the hell is this complex for?_ '

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEWAY'**

Yamato cracked open her eyelids.  
No, she hadn't been rent asunder, nor was there a fist sized hole in her chest cavity. Her gambit had worked.

While Dawn was concentrated on charging her MAC and getting a firing solution on Yamato, the battleship-woman had been focused on her own task. Lining up her main batteries, she had prepared herself to take immediate evasive action in a rather unconventional manner.

Based on previous – and painful – experience, and pre-mission research regarding the standard Charon-class frigate's various weapon systems as per the UNSC naval technical database (which Captain Thomas Lasky had so graciously permitted access to), she had calculated the exact moment in which to fire a full broadside while propelling herself into the air.

As a battleship, the maneuver would have been impossible. But in her ship-woman form, it was merely improbable. The anti-gravity propulsion module salvaged off of one of the destroyed Covenant vehicles outside might have assisted in some miniscule way as well, or – more likely – just provided a placebo effect.

In the end, it made little difference as to the 'how', as long as the evasive action worked. And it did. The recoil from her main battery immediately shoved her to the side of the hall as the hypersonic projectile sped past, barely missing its intended target. The pressure wave still hit, however, and gave her added lift, nearly slamming her into the wall.

Colliding with the metallic floor, she felt the alien material dent inwards beneath her weight. Might have been worse – it could have given way entirely, like conventional materials were wont to do when 72,000 long tons were focused into a spot the size of an average human.

Yamato had no doubt that the UNSC would be picking up pieces of her from the interior of the structure for years to come if that round had found its original mark. That is, if the structure was still standing after the Office of Naval Intelligence would be forced to implement some sort of contingency plan to secure – or destroy – the Abyss-corrupted warship in front of her.

Dawn stood in front of the door from which she entered the hall, surrounded by utter darkness. Even from almost fifty meters away, the battleship-woman could still see the MAC charging up for another shot.

"We're not here to hurt you," Yamato called out. "Please, come with us peacefully." It didn't work – usually – with the Abyssals that she was used to facing, but given the circumstances, it did not hurt to try. Yet.

No response.

"You're UNSC. Not only that, but you're **THE** Forward unto Dawn, a ship that held all of humanity's hope when there wasn't any hope left to hold. You're a symbol for humanity's resilience in the face of certain doom, so why are you trying to hurt them?"

Still no response, but the hum from the MAC was getting noticeably louder. One final attempt, then.

"Do you not remember the vow your crew took? To pro-"

Finally, a response. ' _And what did they repay my service with?_ ' The voice was not verbal, but more of a feeling pulsing through Yamato's mind, coursing with fury, hate, and uncontrollable rage. ' _All must die._ '

Yamato sighed. She would have to do things the hard way... not that she had expected _talking_ to an abyssalized ship would make it not want to murder every living thing within a sizable radius of itself. It was still worth the attempt.

Yamato rotated her cannons and fired again-this time directly at Dawn.

Nine high explosive shells slammed into the Forerunner material at Dawn's feet, the shockwave from the blasts forcing the frigate to stumble backwards as the structure groaned, the MAC discharging upwards and connecting with the ceiling – or rather, with yet another energy barrier covering the ceiling.

Though the round had missed, Yamato was not given a second of respite as a torrent of autocannon fire poured out from the smoke covering the general area where Yamato's shells had landed.

Yamato responded in turn, her complement of 25mm AA cannons and 127mm dual purpose guns ripping apart the atmosphere in a blaze of defiance.

The space inside the cavern turned into a hellish nightmare, tracers and hot lead filling the air, as both combat vessels unloaded their full armaments at each other.

Though she managed to avoid or deflect most of them, a cluster of UNSC 50mm armor-penetrating shells caught Yamato's side, knocking the wind out of her.

Meanwhile, Yamato's return fire was having little effect, the rounds sparking harmlessly off of Dawn's body as she waded through them unhindered. A devilish grin materialized on the rogue frigate's face, reminiscent of that which was often shown by the fearsome Abyssal Re-class aviation battleships.

Yamato nonetheless kept up the volume of fire, her secondaries and anti-air defenses sweeping the hull, searching for any sort of weak spot – and the frigate abruptly jerked as an explosion blossomed on her starboard side.

A lucky series of 127mm rounds had struck one of Dawn's mounted archer missile pods and caused a chain of detonations that threw the frigate violently into the side of the hall.

Dawn hit the energy field protecting the surface with such force that that particular section appeared to shatter beneath her, splintering apart into fine shards. Her forward momentum was not entirely diminished by the collsion, however, and she soon found herself within the actual material on the other side. She hung there for a second, plastered into the wall, before gravity took over and sent her crashing into the ground like a rag doll.

Behind her, the protective field began to repair itself.

Dawn slowly got up, her right side scorched and still smoking. She shook her head – and then did an almost comical double take when she noticed the state of the cannon array on her right shoulder. Or rather, the lack of a cannon array.

The rogue frigate glanced behind her. The cannon lay on the ground, brutally severed from her shoulder. Somehow. Black liquid boiled up from her wounds, quickly sealing them shut, as her facial expressions switched rapidly from shock, to horror, and then to complete and utter rage.

' _So, you wish to die slow? I will tear you to pieces, bulkhead by bulkhead!_ '

Ignoring the threat, Yamato rotated her primaries to track Dawn. This time, she had loaded armor piercing.

 _'_ _Firing solution calculated... rounds on the way.'_

Nine yellow tracers raced out of Yamato's cannons and arced towards Dawn.  
Three landed on target. A metallic shriek reverberated through the cavern and Dawn disappeared in a shower of crimson sparks. When the smoke cleared, Dawn was nowhere to be found.

Yamato scanned the dark cavern until two glowing eyes of malice cut through the haziness and gave away Dawn's position, accompanied by another salvo of UNSC fifty-millimeter autocannon fire. Only this time, the fire control was sloppy, punching in all around the Japanese ship-warrior… but not a single one making contact with the intended target.

The battleship-woman fired again, but this time no rounds connected. Instead they plowed into the metal floor, opening up holes in the structure.

A massive flash of blue-white light blinded Yamato for a second before a huge blast threw her to the ground.  
Out of nowhere, Dawn landed on top of her and pinned her squarely to the ground, her tremendous weight slowly taking its toll on Yamato's body.

' _Another trick that this form has provided me... an in-atmosphere slipspace transition, as my former crew had called it,_ ' hissed Dawn, three ugly purple bruises forming along the length of her body. " _The memories of their fear when considering the possibility… they are… exciting._ '

"I, Yamato, shall not be defeated by a cheap trick!"

Yamato's rear gun battery swung quickly upward and unloaded three high explosive rounds into the underside of Dawn's chin and flinging her torso upwards with enough force to allow her to roll out from underneath Dawn's pin hold.

Screaming with fury, Dawn leapt at Yamato before she could fully right herself - only to be intercepted by a salvo from Yamato's second main gun battery. This time however, she wasn't even knocked back, having propelled herself forward with the aid of her maneuvering thrusters.

Yamato ducked down and landed a solid punch into Dawn's midsection as she flew over. The rogue frigate skidded to a halt on the ground a fair distance away.  
Taking the initiative, Yamato rushed over to Dawn and pinned both of her arms to the ground before she could recover. She was now right above the abyssal, observing the rise and fall of the frigate's chest and staring right into her terrifying yellow eyes.

"This ends now. Come quietly - or I shoot," stated Yamato coldly, as she lined up one of her primary batteries to Dawn's forehead.

The Abyssal's struggling seemed to stop. For a second, Yamato actually thought that she had given up. Those notions were quickly shattered when she felt a searing heat on her left thigh.

' _Burn..._ ' said Dawn, venom oozing from her mental voice, piercing directly into the battleship-woman's mind, filling it with images of her former crew roiling in flames as her ship-self began to sink, of that ONI pilot that had died in fire bringing her to this location…

Dawn had rotated one of her main thrusters to fire directly at Yamato's leg, scorching the battleship's skin with roaring blue nuclear flame. Yamato yelped and released her pin hold on Dawn, allowing her to flick an obsidian-colored wrist-blade out of her glove and slash diagonally at Yamato's midriff.

Had she not been protected by the thickest armor belt ever put on a seafaring warship, Yamato would have been cleaved clean in two. As it was, the blade managed to dig nearly a full centimeter into Yamato's armored skin before Dawn slashed violently downward, leaving a shallow cut running more than half the length of Yamato's torso that oozed black fuel-oil.

"Ack!-"

 _Torpedo Belt perforated from frame 27 to frame 81. Fuel leak detected._

Leaving Yamato no respite, Dawn then balled her other hand into a fist and jammed it with all her available strength into Yamato's gut, the impact of such a vicious attack making a visible mach cone of hyper-pressurized air as it struck home. The Japanese woman's vision turned red.

Dark blood shot out of Yamato's mouth and splattered across Dawn's face, with the frigate's tongue snaking out and licking at it.

Normally such a hit would have knocked Yamato out cold from the sheer force, but the amount of adrenaline pumping through her veins kept her conscious just long enough to fire an armor piercing round point-blank into Dawn's face.

The soft ballistic tip of the shell flattened itself against Dawn's nose and allowed the hardened steel penetrator behind it to slam into Dawn like the impact of a Scarab assault platform dropped from orbit. The kinetic energy transferred to Dawn slammed her head back so hard that even the inhumanly tough forerunner alloy floor of the cavern was indented. Silence descended on the hall as both warships laid next to each other.

~o~

Next chapter: Things get even more interesting.


	29. Defeat

...  
And then the rogue frigate staggered back to her feet, her reactors redlining to keep her in the fight. A noticeable aura blared from her body, blue and yellow esoteric energy struggling for dominance around her.

' _You… will all… die._ '

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEWAY'**

Spartan Jeremy Martinez stared in horrified disbelief as the enemy regained her feet and began stumbling towards her severed cannon array… which was itself apparently capable of independent movement, creeping on multiple segmented legs towards the bitch's outstretched right arm.  
The taunts didn't help, either. After the first communication from the frigate, Clarke had ordered their electronic communication systems shut down, just in case of an EWAR attempt. The process wasn't electronic in nature. It was something… else. Something primordial.

Michaelson was still blinded from the flare of energy. Martinez had regained his vision just in time to see Yamato go down. And Clarke's play-by-play coverage of the fight… was sorely lacking.

At some point, the Chief had shown up as well, but was just as impotent as the rest of them. A shame that Cortana was no more, as she could have easily gained access to the chamber – hell, she could have run her own EWAR against the frigate, which would have been a massive combat multiplier for them.

The Chief spoke up, communicating via the external speakers on his helmet. "Fireteam Apex. New plan."

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEWAY'**

 _Turret 1 Jammed._  
 _Turret 3 unable to load._  
 _Structural ribbing cracked._  
 _Keel overstressed._  
 _Armor deck heavily abraded._  
 _Boilers 1-3 shock damaged._

Yamato's damage control center reported that just about every major combat subsystem had been hit in some manner. As far as fighting was concerned, she would be completely useless at it until she had a (very) long soak in the repair docks. It was… unfortunate that the UNSC did not appear to possess any of the variant required to repair her kind.

The sound of metal stomping on metal filled the room, sending waves of fear down her spine.  
A pair of lambent eyes - one light blue, one golden - shone out of the darkness. With a quick wave of her hand, the Abyssal pushed the smoke away from her, revealing her figure for Yamato to see.

Dawn hadn't escaped Yamato's attack unscathed. Her black combat suit was torn and shredded, exposing the pale skin underneath. Blood dripped from the frigate's nose and there was a massive dent – where her final shell had connected - right in the middle of her forehead. However, the blue and yellow aura flaring from her indicated that she was still very much combat-capable. Her jaw moved, as if she were chewing something.

Her mouth yawned open as she spat out shards of what appeared to be the remains of a Type 91 AP shell. ' _Your final main battery shot, and it turns out to be a dud. Just like your service record, Hotel._ '

Like a living, tangible shinigami, Dawn slowly made her way over to where Yamato was lying and nudged her prone form with her boot, before smirking. ' _I will let you listen to their death screams before I release you from this world._ ' The Abyssal began to stride towards the shielded door, leaving the Japanese woman behind.

Yamato forced herself to stand... and promptly doubled over, wrapping her left arm around her torso as she was racked with agony. Still she remained standing, and even managed to swing at Dawn with a weak right hook.

' _What a pity._ '

Dawn easily caught Yamato's hastily thrown punch with her left hand – her right being tucked behind her back - before beginning to squeeze.

' _I had expected… more._ ' Another laugh – followed by another vision of the Japanese flagship's past. Her former commander – Captain Aruga Kosaku – drowning, flailing, as her hull flipped over and slipped beneath the waves… the blood-soaked deck being wiped off by ocean currents as she descended… ' _Do not worry for long…_ _in death, you shall be reunited with-._ '

Yamato managed to just barely rotate two of her AA guns towards Dawn. They let out a torrent of 25mm shells which impacted Dawn's gloved hand… to absolutely no effect.  
Dawn's grip on Yamato's fist tightened. The sounds of metal being crushed could barely be heard over the battleship-woman's short cry of pain. ' _Ever defiant. I shall take my time, then._ '

The Abyssal warship's own point defense weapons whirred to life, lancing out with armor-piercing rounds – sandblasting Yamato's body with sheer number of hits, utterly shattering her Type 93 and Type 96 anti-aircraft weapons whenever they found their mark – her secondaries lasting slightly longer, but still succumbing to the incoming torrent of 50mm autocannon shells.

The Japanese woman twisted her body left in desperation, ignoring the flare of pain lancing through her right side in response, in order to allow one of her few remaining 155mm secondaries to obtain a clean shot at Dawn. Shot after shot of heavy artillery slammed into Dawn's fingers until, after what seemed like an eternity, she let go with a hiss – launching herself backwards, away from the incoming fire, her point defense weapons going silent once more.

The damage had already been done, however. Yamato's right hand had been crushed, and one of her fingers had been broken after a stray AP shell from her own secondary battery had slammed into it.

Yamato clutched her shattered hand and aimed a kick at the Abyssal's midsection, putting all of her remaining energy into the swing – and came to a quick stop. Dawn had easily slipped under her leg with astonishing grace, grabbed onto the extended limb with both hands, and lifted the entire Japanese battleship-woman over her head – her maneuvering thrusters going at full charge to assist with the motion – and cratered her into the metallic floor with a resounding crunch.

Pulses of energy lanced out from the now-destroyed section of Forerunner flooring, arcing through the formerly glowing decorative lines, up the walls, and through the ceiling, either disappearing into the darkness that had consumed more than three-quarters of the hallway, or back down the passage that Yamato and her escorts had arrived from.

"Gah..."

Yamato attempted to stand up, her engines whining with immeasurable strain, but a swift kick from Dawn spun her a clean fifty feet into the air before she crashed back down to the ground.

The damage she had sustained from Dawn's beating was simply far too much. Her boilers gave in, causing her to cough up clouds of dark smoke laced with burning embers. She was dead in the water, fuel beginning to leak out of her nose and mouth – as well as all over her body as her wounds began to bleed.

Dawn slowly walked over to Yamato's broken form, clearly relishing her victory over the battleship. Her aura blazed with esoteric energy as her injuries rapidly healed over.

Yamato's eyes jolted open in response to the sharp impact on her starboard side. She attempted to force herself to turn away from the impact point, but found herself utterly unable to move her body – and shivered in response to the maniacal laugh that stole through her mind afterwards.

' _Not so tough now._ '

Dawn grinned down from above, now seemingly hovering in place with her maneuvering thrusters.  
' _You will now die. And then the humans in the next room will die. And then the humans outside will die. Ah… and then the_ Infinity _and all her souls will die. All must sink, and die._ '

The frigate shuddered in apparent bliss, her MAC charging up for another shot. With no slight amount of horror and disgust, a corner of Yamato's mind noted the weapon system's new placement – now fused directly into the Abyssal's right arm and pulsing with black cords… or were those veins? Behind Dawn, the shields began to fluctuate, sections randomly flickering on and off…

' _Goodbye, Ho-_.'

And a blue streak slammed into the side of the cannon, bending the entire array and crushing the point of impact, trapping the now-live round within. And with the safeguards likely no longer in place…

The frigate could only stare in terror as her own APTDHE round – fired more than two days ago – bored into the side of her main weapon system, and activated in response to her presence.  
The resulting detonation blew apart the cannon array entirely and sent the corrupted Forward Unto Dawn hurtling backwards, her aura now snuffed out, out of the hallway and into the darkened chamber from which she emerged.

Silence, yet again.


	30. Review Responses!

Author's Note: So I don't have much time for writing right now, but what I do have time for is to respond to some reviews and/or questions that you all have.

~o~

Q: BrokenLifeCycle chapter 29

More cliffhangers?

Are you... Trying to murder us?

A: Yes.

~o~

Q: Cpl. Leon chapter 29

Just wondering if a Chief x Utamaro is a possibility, that chapter of the "Battleship babies" really had me going. Thanks for crushing my hopes and dreams by the way. But other than that the story is great, I do hope you make chapters longer as standard each of mine are 5k words plus.

A: As much as I'd like Chief and Yam-Yams to be a thing, it would be so out of character for both of them that I literally wouldn't even know where to begin. I'll try to make the future chapters longer, but time isn't something I have a lot of nowadays.

~o~

Q: Anon chapter 29

what just happened? was that a Mac from a friendly human ship?  
that was no spartan laser and that emo spartan's railgun was destroyed  
what happened?

A: Firstly, Mr. Emo spartan would like to have a word with you regarding your nickname for him. Secondly, he made a second oversized cannon specifically meant to fire the shell extracted from Yamato back at Dawn with interest.

~o~

Q: Some random guy chapter 8

...Battleship-grade armor breached by a plasma gun? Not even a mounted weapon, but a man-portable gun?

A: Ships aren't armored everywhere in real life. How that translates to shipgirls means that some parts of Yammy can take more punishment than others. Her head, chest, and torso, represent her armored citadel aka her conning tower, boiler rooms, and magazines. These parts are really REALLY hard to hurt. You could dump thirty rounds of plasma rifle fire into Yammy's face and she'd barely feel it. Other parts of her are still quite durable, but just not to the same extent as her citadel. These areas can indeed be hurt by repeated plasma strikes from infantry weapons, but mostly due to plasma's extreme canonical effectiveness against metal armor more than anything else. She could still plug three fingers down the barrel of a 40mm cannon while its firing and stop the cannon shell dead in its tracks without any injury to herself. Likewise, you could give a horror movie psychopath a bunch of industrial power tools (angle grinder, hydraulic press, power drill etc.) and give him an entire hour to go at Yamato with everything he had and she'd be completely fine at the end of that hour.

TLDR: Plasma hurts metal really badly compared to projectile weapons or physical force.

~o~

Q:Thorthemighty321 chapter 27

Who the hell set Lasky's pants on fire?

A: I did.

~o~

Q:orbitalanon chapter 22

37 millimeters that doesn't sound so large how is that a monstrous round?

A: Ever see those videos on youtube where someone is firing a really big freaking anti-tank rifle? Well those are 20 mm Lahti AT guns used in

the continuation war. A 37 mm gun fires a round about 8 times as massive. So yeah, for an infantry carried rifle it's huge. In fact, it's the same caliber of weapon that scout tanks such as the M5 Stuart fired.

Q:Donny Donster chapter 21

Wow, keep this story going, I like it.

Just throwing ideas out into the air here: If UNSC shipgirls are the bad guys, then UNSC should summon Covenant shipgirls to fight them. In Kancolle, it's basically IJN and German shipgirls fighting the Abyssals which are based off of American ships, so why the heck not?

A: The UNSC is still in the process of being completely and utterly baffled by (and terrified of) what Yamato is. She violates just about every single major scientific principle pronounced in the past 700 years or so, and they also understand that if Yamato wanted to, she could wreck the better part of a UNSC ground battalion without breaking a sweat. The last thing the UNSC wants to do is to have MORE of them running around, let alone summon ships that took part in the slaughter of billions of people during the human-covenant war.

~o~

Q:Lots of people in my inbox

Will Dawn turn good? Is Dawn + someone in the UNSC ever going to be a thing?

A: Unlikely, but honestly, not outside the realm of possibility.


	31. Aftermath

**SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEWAY'**

Spartan Jeremy Martinez entered zen. Everything grew hazy around him – the Chief off to the side of the energy barrier, his hands pressed against one of the various Forerunner hardlight displays that lined the walls; or his teammates bringing their own weapons to bear on the designated target area.

His mind was focused on a single point ahead of him – the abhorrent monstrosity that had nearly slew his charge, and was now setting up for an execution. Martinez raised his newest creation to his own shoulder, disengaging the safety, the barrel already charging up with a high whine.

He had built it to spec – it wasn't easy to cobble together what was essentially a tank-mounted 'mini'-MAC in under an hour, but it was the only choice he had to construct something that could actually put some hurt on their expected adversary.

Bolts of energy crackled along the length of the weapon, one lancing out every second or so. Around him, his other two teammates began to gravitate toward the barrel, the sheer magnetic force reaching out and grabbing at their MJOLNIR armor. Spartan Michaelson's M6H magnum abruptly took flight from his mag-holster and rocketed towards Big John – a bolt of energy flew from the barrel, caressing the pistol – and the ammunition within immediately cooked off. Instead of shrapnel flying everywhere from the sudden destruction of UNSC military property, the remaining shards snapped magnetically into place on the side of the mini-MAC, additional energy cascades fusing them to its surface.

Jeremy took no heed. To him, the world was a simple corridor, connecting him with the target. The shield in front of him remained impassive, its surface glowing red, red like blood, red like the now-torched parasol in Sarai-Yamato-VIP's odd combat gear – and then abruptly vanished.

Even as the Spartan sharpshooter released the firing pad, a part of his mind caused him to adjust his aim, and his stance, ever so slightly. The butt of the man-portable death-cannon slipped to the left of his shoulder, still braced against the arm – and then the weapon bucked with recoil as it discharged, the salvaged MAC shell taking flight once more, bearing in on the enemy frigate, its eldritch internals responding to her presence.

Martinez' vision darkened completely. He never saw the round impact its target, never saw the immediate effect upon collision, or the subsequent detonation of the Forward Unto Dawn's own MAC assembly.

Fifteen seconds after the rogue frigate had been sent flying backwards by the detonation of both the salvaged MAC round and her own currently loaded one, Jeremy's vision flared back in full.

He could feel the fentanyl flowing through his body in response to some kind of massive trauma, but as to what kind he had no clue. There was no pain, just a complete blankness in his left arm. Unsteadily, he got to his feet, helped up by his teammates in the process.

The shield was down. The lights in the corridor flickered back to life, revealing the slowly-closing door that Dawn had been violently tossed through. And in the center of the hall…

SPARTAN-IV-322 began to sprint towards the prone figure, followed by the rest of the group.

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEWAY'**

"We need heavy lifting equipment on site now!" Chief shouted through TEAMCOM, connecting to the Pelican outside. There was no response from the pilot.

All four Spartans rushed past the now deactivated threshold to where Yamato lay unmoving and broken on the ground.  
"Jesus" muttered Clarke. As a SPARTAN-IV, Apex LEAD had seen more than his fair share of blood and gore on the battlefield, but this was just plain gruesome. At the moment, the only two words that could fairly describe the wounded battleship-woman were 'bloody' and 'pulp' – and that was a complement to bloody pulps.  
Looking at Yamato, he could almost see the shredded superstructure, punctured hull, and flooded internals of a sinking warship in its last moments before slipping beneath the waves.

"Shit, she's dying!" exclaimed Spartan Michaelson, SIV-318.

"Biofoam, now," the Chief ordered sharply.  
Michaelson tossed the Chief a can – ripping it directly off of his armor - and the SPARTAN-II immediately went to work on Yamato's more prominent wounds.  
"It's not working."  
Instead of filling Yamato's injuries and hardening to stop her internal bleeding, the biofoam was simply melting away due to her blisteringly hot fuel-oil blood composition.

"Emergency suture k-."  
Clarke already had the medi-pack outstretched, having pulled it from the stowage compartment on the side of his armor during their approach. Once again the Chief attempted to stifle the flow of obsidian liquid pouring out the gash in Yamato's abdomen and once again, he failed.  
"It's no use," said the Chief as he withdrew his hands - now covered in slick black liquid. "The needle won't pierce her skin."

It was truly ironic, in a way, that Yamato's resilient armored skin that had protected her from many a bullet or blade was now preventing anyone from saving her life.

"I'm not getting a pulse – wait, would she even have one-"

"DEFIB!" commanded the Chief.  
Bulky MJOLNIR gauntlets fumbled with the combination lock on the UNSC standard issue trauma pack – before an energy blade sliced the lock apart completely.  
"Catch," SPARTAN-IV-322 called as he tossed the formerly-stowed defibrillator to the Chief.  
"Clear!"  
Sparks and bolts of electricity arced from Yamato's chest to the alien metal floor, but nothing happened.

Seconds passed, but still no movement.  
Seconds turned into a full minute, with Yamato's body heat image on the Chief's thermal camera slowly turning from a blazing hot white to a cool blue matching that of the cold metal floor.

"Fuck with this," Apex's normally stoic sharpshooter cussed, reaching to the back of his armor and seizing the heavy power-pack that had been used to charge up Jeb and his homebrew mini-MAC, snapping the top interlock free – and finding nothing gripping the bottom one. He blinked in irritation, glancing over to his left shoulder, expecting to see his arm having been dislocated – and stopped.

His arm... simply didn't look human anymore. The forces exerted on it by the firing of his ad-hoc coilgun had simply shattered his humerus as well as his shoulder joint. His nigh unbreakable, ceramically reinforced humerus and shoulder joint, that is. The stress of breaking such a strongly constructed skeletal structure sent shards of hardened material slicing through the spartan's muscle like so many hot knives. His arm may as well have just been amputated right then and there. Ignoring the immense pain, Spartan Martinez disengaged the locks securing the oversized power pack and set it down near the fallen battleship.

He started the charging sequence yet again, the fusion reactor within whirring with energy – though the capacitors were almost completely drained, and one was completely scrambled altogether.

He grasped the main power cable that would otherwise have connected to either Jeb or Big John – its end having been severed when the death-cannon fired – and raised it high.

"Noh die 'oday."

He brought it down, directly onto the woman's heart. The capacitors discharged one final time, then went silent for good. The micro fusion reactor shut down.

Minutes dragged on. Aside from a boost in her temperature from Jeremy's last ditch attempt, there was no change in Yamato's condition. The crippled Spartan sat down, his head fixated on the woman's own face.

"It's... over then?" asked Clarke solemnly.

"No," said a voice that nobody was expecting to hear, albeit weakly.

"Huh-what-how-"

A weak cough interrupted Clarke in the middle of his exclamation.

"Allow me to explain." said Yamato in voice that was far too calm for her critical condition.

"I, Yamato, have seen your organization's scientific analysis of me - a rather well put together report based on the tests that you had me perform. They seem to conclude that I am simply some kind of biomechanical superhuman being. Based on what you observed and your people's scientific method, I would say that is not a half-bad description. But it's also completely wrong."

"Excu-"

"For I am truly the embodiment of the battleship Yamato. Her crew, her hull, her pride, and her fighting spirit... they are now all parts of me. I am far more than merely what your eyes can see. And that, in essence, is what your science fails to explain. So while my blood has been split and my heart has been stopped, low fuel and cold boilers have never sunk a ship."

The Chief nodded in understanding. Clarke however, did not.

"That's not possible… the laws of physics..." started Clarke once more.

Given how deeply the UNSC relied on hard physical science for practically everything it did, Yamato had expected this kind of skepticism from at least a few members of the Spartan team.

"Let me ask you one thing, Spartan Matt Clarke." Yamato spoke gently, as if addressing a mature child. "Look at me and tell me what you see."

"What kind of question is that? You're a..."  
Spartan Michaelson paused mid-sentence, seemingly confused. He raised one hand to his forehead, like he had some kind of headache. The visors of all three Fireteam Apex members depolarized.  
"You're a..." he repeated, but stopped mid-sentence once again.

"You're a block of swiss cheese is what you are," muttered Clarke, his mind roaring in overdrive, trying to make sense of the revelation being put forward in such a way that his mind didn't snap under the strain.

That was the reaction that Yamato had been hoping for, albeit not with those particular words.

"Your senses are confused. You see a woman, but what's really there... is a ship. All sixty-eight thousand tons of one bundled with the spiritual life force of twenty-seven hundred crew and a healthy amount of nationalism. So I am not just merely a being with the strength and firepower of the Yamato like the scientists of the UNSC want to believe I am. I **am** the Yamato. We are one in the same."

Silence filled the room like the Shield World itself had just been dropped on their heads.

Clarke's expression went completely blank.

 ** _Snap._**

The fireteam leader dipped to his right, then leaned backwards… and fell over.

TEAMCOM crackled with activity.

"Holy shit," spoke Peter Samuels, SPARTAN-IV-307.

"I'm dreaming right just tell me I'm dreaming I never made SIV qualification right I'm just back home on Earth on the beach not in an alien structure next to a literal battleship-woman a living piece of human history," Clarke breathed over TEAMCOM, his voice tainted with just the slightest bit of hysterics.

Spartan Michaelson remained quiet, his mind racing - though for an entirely different reason. If the battleship-woman had an inkling as to what he was referencing when he had referred to her as 'Hotel' (The things that happen in the underground of the 26th century Hotel Yamato in Yokohama are best left undisclosed, lets just put it that way) well, he hoped that his teammates would intervene before his bloody dismemberment by a woman thus righteously scorned.

And Spartan Martinez… smiled, two tears rolling down his face. He stood up, reached out his hand to help Yamato off the floor – and then his eyes rolled back into his head as the painkillers and trauma from his shredded arm finally knocked him unconscious, his now locked-up armor collapsing to the ground next to Yamato, landing face-down on the gouged-up floor.

Author's Notes-

Next chapter we find out what happens with Dawn!

Hint: It may or may not be something to do with what some of you overwhelmingly requested in my inbox.


	32. Aftermath (pt 2)

**SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
OUTSIDE MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEAWAY'**

"Captain Lasky, this is Apex Two. Mission site is secure, but we need medivac for two… wounded. Dawn's has been rendered combat ineffective. The Chief and the rest of Fireteam Apex are securing her now."

"Understood, Spartan. We're sending down additional Pelicans to secure the area-"

"With all due respect, sir… we're going to need a Strident."

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
INSIDE MISSION SITE – 'DAWN'S HIDEWAY'**

With just the slightest hint of the noise of air displacement, the massive segmented blast door cracked apart, sliding to the sides of the room, revealing the darkness beyond.

Two pairs of lights stabbed out into the void, barely illuminating patches of the chamber. Two figures entered the cavernous room, scanning every surface within. Less than ten seconds after entering, the chamber began to light up – or, at least, attempt to do so - as the structure responded to the geas within one of the beings.

The walls were trashed, massive marks gouged through them, entire sections missing. The floor wasn't much better, with the machinery in the center of the room having been aggressively dismantled at one point in time. What drew the pair's attention was the eight-foot tall hole in the back wall.

The pair cautiously advanced across the chamber, now focused directly on the wall. Their detection kit revealed nothing throughout the room as a whole, which led to the conclusion that their quarry was within the newly-made recess in the back of the structure.

Both individuals came to a stop less than fifteen feet away. Even from here, their lights could see the end of the impromptu tunnel. Aside from a vaguely person-shaped impact crater, there was nothing else within.

The shorter, blue-armored being glanced towards the green one, then both scanned the entire area again. Nothing came up- wait, energy signatures, movement-

Three slipspace translocation portals whirled opened near the ceiling. Both soldiers tightened their trigger-grips, ready to engage anything that might emerge, expecting a Promethean construct assault… and barely avoided opening fire on a swarm of Constructor Sentinels, which vectored in on the closest two damaged sections.

Another cluster of robotic units flowed through the remaining portal, though of a considerably more dangerous type than the Constructors. The identification signal they gave off chilled the blood of one of the pair. Onyx-variant Sentinels. _Shipkillers_.

Neither of the Sentinel swarms paid any undue attention to the two individuals below. The Constructors initiated repair protocols on the damaged sections, slowly piecing them back together, whereas the Onyx-variants formed loose defensive cordons around the Forerunner maintenance constructs.

The Master Chief partially lowered his BR85. "She's not here."

"…What?"

"If Dawn were here, those Sentinels would be focused entirely on her. Instead, they're in standard defensive formation. Their targeting ledger is currently clear, and threat monitoring systems are detecting nothing. She's not here."

Multiple thoughts steamed through Spartan Michaelson's mind at that point. One, how did the Chief know all this; two, there had been no indication of Onyx-grade Sentinels active on this planet before, even with the Didact in command; and three, what the hell was this complex for if _Onyx Sentinels_ were part of its protection detail?

But pulverizing all else: "Then where the hell is she?"

 **SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM  
LOCATION REQ-319-B, DESIGNATED 'BEACON'**

Sergeant Baron Garrison sighed. Viper Company had taken up possession of the Forerunner tower complex not more than a day ago, and so far, there was no Covenant or Promethean activity in the area. It didn't take an expert to understand why - the UNSC had turned the spire into a damned fortress and were using it as a central base for operations across the entire local continent. From what he could gather from the AAR of the Spartan fireteam that had originally taken the structure from the Covenant's grasp, the split-lips had destroyed whatever Forerunner artifact they had originally set out to claim for themselves, and so the Covenant weren't high on the prospect of attempting to retake the place.

He himself was down below, in the tunnels beneath the structure proper. He knew deep inside that he really wasn't supposed to be down here, but-

Light shone from up ahead, followed by the noise of a thunderous collision. The tunnel walls shook, portions of rock collapsing from the sides, revealing the Forerunner material hidden beneath. Even before the ground had ceased shaking, he was already on the comms, relaying his last known position and contact with the enemy. If the Covenant had just attempted to detonate a bomb underneath the spire – or blast their way into the cave system below, then at least the follow-up crew would be more prepared to deal with the problem.

The more practical side of Baron's mind told him to retreat, to run away, head back for the surface, to safety – but he knew that the base commander wouldn't approve of his slight excursion without a damned good excuse. Plus, here was his chance to prove himself in battle. He throttled the cowardly thoughts, strangled them, snapped their proverbial spines, and then clambered over the various rubble in his path towards the impact point, drawing his trusty M6D in the process.

Bracing himself against the exposed Forerunner wall next to the tunnel corner, he checked his BDU's IFF/motion tracker. One neutral contact, faint but present. He took a deep breath, snapped the M6D's safety off, and swiveled around the corner, taking partial cover next to a fallen chunk of rock-

And twin points of orange light speared deep into him, right into his mind, figurative fingers _impaling his brain and twisting, jittering_ -  
He fell backwards, screaming in agony, out of the line of effect of whatever had just mentally mauled him. Were those... _eyes?_

The pain lessened considerably after that, to the point where he could at least think again. He looked down at his Magnum, noticing the shell casings scattered around his left side – in his tortured state, he had discharged almost the entire magazine into the tunnel ahead, past his impromptu cover. His HUD read two bullets remaining in the weapon.  
He had to have hit something with that barrage. With trembling hands, he pushed himself partially up, before rolling over and flipping about. The noise of his armored BDU scraping against stone as he crawled into the next tunnel – still having not regained the use of his legs – rang out throughout the cave. He expected plasma fire or hardlight projectiles to put an end to his agony at any point, but nothing responded.

Sergeant Garrison paused to glance up, looking around – and froze. The dot on his motion detector was to his ten-o-clock, a single point of blue ethereal light facing him, slowly fading away. He dragged his arm forward, bringing his Magnum to bear, clicking the flashlight on, to reveal-

' _What._ '

Partially buried in the rocky rubble was what looked to be the dead body of a young woman, no older than twenty. Her skin pale as snow and a head of flowing raven black hair that ended just past her shoulders. Her clothing seemed to be a black naval uniform that looked it had just come out of those mid-twentieth century museum exhibits. Around her was what looked like a scrapyard of gun barrels and metal plates.

Even with the dust, dirt and rock fragments that coated some parts of her body and marred her attractive form, her slender figure was something that most men would appreciate.

It was such a shame; even deceased she radiated a sort of dangerous beauty. A woman that many a man would be nervous just in the presence of lay dead. Judging by her attire, she wasn't any member of the UNSC or the Covenant, what was a civilian doing in a combat zone? Regardless, he needed to ask command of what to do with her.

Sergeant Garrison looked closer to assess the woman's cause of death, and gasped. Her body was scorched and bearing a complete mess of injuries, some of which consisted of open wounds dripping thick, viscous liquid. Her right arm barely passed as a limb anymore, having seemingly _detonated_. Her beauty was ruined by an ovoid-shaped hole on the side closest to him, near her upper torso, the wound having the appearance consistent of something – or a series of somethings – having exploded within her body. The front of the obviously-not-human being was pockmarked with small indents, as if she had been sandblasted with tiny projectiles repeatedly – though the majority of them didn't penetrate her skin. The ones that did, however, were large, gaping wounds. There was also a giant dent in her forehead.

 _That's not how humans get injured..._

At the same time, his mind felt like it was going into overdrive trying to comprehend what lay before him. His senses told him that there was a simply massive presence in front of him, and yet all he saw was this one woman.

Just as he was frantically scrambling to report to mission control, the woman's eyes shot open. "What the fu-" The man said, his mind struggling to understand what his eyes were witnessing.

The woman sat up, her mouth agape in what seemed like a silent scream. She began to change- quite literally change in front of his eyes. Her uniform seemed to melt away, leaving her nude for but a split second before reforming into a near perfect recreation of a UNSC navy battle dress uniform. Her pale-lifeless skin gaining a more healthy, fair shade and her previously orange eyes turned a strikingly-beautiful shade of electric blue as they locked onto his.

As this happened, a dark cloud of pure malice condensed above the struggling woman, forming a wraith or apparition of some sort. The newly formed shadow passed by Baron on it's way deeper into the caverns, and as it did, the air became thick in what Baron could only describe as pure, unadulterated hatred.

Baron gagged as he did his best to swallow the bile rising up his throat. _What the Hell was that?!_

The woman somehow struggled into a standing position

"U-UNSC Hull Classification Symbol..." She wheezed, saluting him feebly with a shattered arm. The woman was clearly in a great deal of pain, and just these last few whispered words had seemed to take a truly Herculean effort to utter out.

She paused to hack up some kind of dark liquid that dripped messily down from her torn lip.

"FFG-201, F-Forward Unto Dawn"

She took another moment to weakly snap off a quick salute with her shattered arm.

"R-reporting for d-duty" She struggled falling forward and into the marine's arms.

In all of his years in the military, given all the horrors he had witnessed he had only one response. "What the ever loving f*** is happening?"

~o~

Author's notes:

And someone call a repair ship! Looks like the UNSC has not one but two warships that are well and truly out for the count.

And if anyone is confused, Yamato and co. literally beat the abyss out of Dawn. Doesn't mean the abyssal spirit is dead though, just elsewhere.


	33. Omake: Lunchtime! (with Akagi)

Definitely non-canon...

POV Akagi

Akagi was having a splendidly good day. Sure her flight deck had been raked by abyssal autocannon fire during her daily sortie in the morning, and sure she had somehow managed to fall down a few flights of stairs just now (she had always been a tad clumsy), but none of that changed the fact that a truly magnificent feast lay before her.

Today was the day that a massive cargo ship had managed to slip through the abyssal blockade and deliver much needed supplies to the naval base Akagi was stationed at. Her boilers growled... she had been low on fuel for at least a week!

That didn't matter now though. Row upon row of steel billets lay stacked, ready for her to chomp on. Large chunks of Bauxite coated in fuel-oil made her mouth water at just the sight. And top it all off, a few thousand pounds of curry sat there just waiting for her to dig in.

Akagi paused, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply, relishing the sweet scent of... _wildflowers and the crisp night air?_

 _wait. WHAT?_

Akagi opened her eyes and looked around. Then she shut them, pinched herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming, muttered something about Aoba spiking her food, and then finally let reality hit home. She wasn't in her naval base anymore. In fact, she was fairly certain that she wasn't _on the same planet_ as her naval base, that was, unless Earth had suddenly decided to grow a second moon.

Now this was all very concerning to poor Akagi, but what was even more concerning was that she had been separated from her food. And she was very, **very** hungry. You wouldn't like Akagi when she's hungry.

Now where could a shipgirl get a decent meal in the middle of a meadow on an alien planet? Akagi asked herself.

Suddenly, a light popped up in the distance. The low rumble of an engine could be heard as the vehicle approached her.

Akagi squinted. It was a tank, though Akagi didn't recognize the design at all. It almost looked like a giant metal lobster. Conflicted thoughts began to race through Akagi's food deprived mind.

 _'Tanks are made of metal. Metal = Yummy."_

 _'No Akagi, NO! Remember what the admiral told you about eating things that don't belong to you. Remember how badly he scolded you after you ate his personal transport plane'_

 _'It was worth it though...'_

 _'And remember the last time you ate an M1 Abrams. Not only did you get indigestion from all the depleted uranium, your admiral spent weeks apologizing to the Americans. And he had to pay for a new one too.'_

 _'That was... also worth it'_

A clattering of alloy tracks interrupted her thoughts, and the tank pulled up alongside Akagi. She felt really bad for the tank driver, especially for what was about to happen next.

~o~

POV Jose

UNSC tank operator Jose Valenko was night-patrolling the outskirts of a UNSC base in his trusty M808B Scorpion when he saw something rather unusual through his night vision camera. There was a woman just standing there in the middle of the tall grass field. This struck Jose as extremely odd, as there was't a major population center around for miles, and judging by her rather odd attire, there was no way she was UNSC-affiliated. She seemed lost, so Jose shrugged and drove towards her, hoping to offer her a ride.

Jose really liked his job, but more than that he really loved his tank. He spent every spare moment of his time ensuring that his war machine was clean, oiled, and ready for action.

Jose parked his tank right next to her, but before he could even pop the hatch to get a better look she suddenly disappeared from his view screen.

 _'that's odd...'_

*CRUNCH*

*CLANG*

*SNAP*

The light's inside the scorpion's fighting compartment flickered, then died.

*SCREEEEEEECH*

Over the sound of metal being torn, Jose could hear the Scorpion's engine splutter.

Jose kicked open the top hatch and bailed out into the tall grass. He fumbled with his flashlight as the cacophonous sounds of bangs and clashes echoed through the night. Then dead silence. With great trepidation, he shone his light to where his scorpion was.

"MY TANK!"

There was nothing to indicate a 66-ton Scorpion had ever been there with the exception of some track marks, a single road wheel (with a rather conspicuous bite taken out of it), and the woman that he had seen earlier.

Now most rational people would have been **scared out of their goddamn mind** at this point, but he was Jose Valenko, and it was a universally recognized rule within his division of the UNSC that **nobody** messes with Jose Valenko's tank.

He pointed his finger accusingly at the mysterious woman.

"OK WHAT THE F*$% DID YOU DO WITH BETSY!"

"Oh... the tank you mean? I, uh... um... ate it"

Jose's face turned redder than the woman's skirt.

Akagi burped.

POV Akagi

The tank operator seemed really angry. She did just eat his tank after all. It was really tasty. Hopefully, he would come to understand that sometimes, sacrifices have to be made for made for the greater good.

Akagi turned her attention towards the tank operator, who had been slinging a tirade of curses (and bullets) at her for the past few minutes.

"-AND THAT'S WHY NOW YOU'RE MOTHERF*CKING A** IS GOING TO GET BLOWN INTO NEXT WEEK!"

He pulled out a black pistol-like device from his utility belt. Akagi wasn't worried - if this new device was anything like the firearms that the soldier had tried on her earlier (she'd eaten those too), then he simply hadn't a chance of hurting her.

Only this time the device didn't spew out harmless bullets. Rather, it painted a nice pretty red circle around her with a glowing dot in the middle resting on the top of her head. Nothing else happened.

'Guess it's a dud' thought Akagi.

Then she heard the tell-tale whistling of inbound artillery shells.

'Uh Oh'

~o~

Akagi awoke burned and bruised in the medical wing of Yokosuka naval base. Well, at least she was home. Before drifting off into unconsciousness once more, she had a single thought.

 _'Totally worth it'_


	34. Debriefing

**UNSC INFINITY (INF-101)**

 **MISSION OBSERVATION ROOM**

Lasky could barely watch the brutal fight unfolding in one of Requiem's many mysterious caverns. Even as a hardened naval officer trained at the rigorous Corbulo military academy, it was just too much. And if the absolute silence among his COs in the room with him was anything to go off of, he wasn't alone in that matter.

The matchup was... decidedly one-sided. Even in her weakened form, Dawn had over five hundred years of serious technological advancement on her side, and it was beginning to show. Although Yamato had managed to land a few lucky hits, Dawn was quite literally taking her apart piece by piece.

Blow after thunderous blow struck the Japanese battleship. Blows that made the whole cavern shake. Blows that would split a Scorpion in two.

Even still, she refused to go down, struggling to her last breath to hold off the frigate's onslaught.

At one point, Yamato even looked like she had the upper hand, having pinned Dawn to the floor. A sigh of collective relief filled the briefing room when this happened, but the mood quickly turned from relief to horror when Dawn drew a midnight dark blade, stuck it into the Japanese woman's stomach, and... Lasky shut off the view screen so his crew didn't have to witness what happened next.

He and his officers sat in complete silence until one by one, they left the room in complete silence, bowing their heads as they passed out the door in a show of respect for the fallen warrior.

Lasky threw his head into his hands.

 _'I knew I shouldn't have sent her in. She was outclassed, simple as that, and yet somehow I thought she could... It doesn't matter what I thought. She's gone now. And the Spartans I sent in with her are next if I don't do something. Think Lasky... THINK!_

An incoming call from the comm system snapped Lasky out of his thoughts.

"Captain Lasky, this is Apex Two. Mission site is secure, but we need medivac for two… wounded. Dawn's has been rendered combat ineffective. The Chief and the rest of Fireteam Apex are securing her now."

Lasky didn't respond for a second, his mind still processing how such an outcome was even possible.

"Understood, Spartan. We're sending down additional Pelicans to secure the area-"

"With all due respect, sir… we're going to need a Strident."

Without even hesitating to think about what a ridiculous request that would be under normal circumstances, Lasky responded.

"Authorized."

A low pitched beeping noise notified Lasky that another call was trying to connect with him.

"Apex 2, keep me posted in case there's anything that requires my attention. Lasky out."

Lasky switched his comm channel to receive the incoming call. A gruff voice rang out of the reciever.

"Lasky this is Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood. We need to talk."

 _'Uh Oh...'_

 **UNSC INFINITY (INF-101)**

 **HOLOGRAPHIC CONFERENCE ROOM**

Hood had always been a rather intimidating man. Even more so when you were sure that you were about to be court-martialed.

Captain Lasky took a deep breath before turning the corner to where a hologram of the 6'4'' mustached leader of the UNSC was waiting for him.

"Captain" addressed the Hologram.

Lasky snapped a quick salute.

"At Ease" said Hood.

"First order of business. I want to let you know that the Infinity will be secure from any more of these hostile teleportation boardings. The anomaly was linked back to the box that you saw. Fireteam majestic brought it on board after they found it at a forerunner relic. According to our scientists, it's a mobile hotspot that's linked with Reqiuem's teleportation network. Having it on board let those covvies right in."

"Alright next order of business"

Lasky gulped.

 _'Here it comes'_ he thought.

"I've gotten a report from ONI commander Osman, who by the way used her administrative privileges as head of ONI to access your encrypted data, that details everything from first contact to medical reports concerning a _unique_ individual known to us as Yamato.

 _'Shit!'_ thought Lasky. He knew that they'd found out in some shape or form, but he didn't think they had gotten **everything**.

"None of the security council could really believe that such a being existed" continued Hood. "But after reviewing the records a few times, and not to mention watching some rather impressive combat footage, we came up with a plan for Yamato and any beings that may be like her. There's a lot we still don't know, but that doesn't mean we can't make the most of their abilities"

"Wait... so what you're telling me is that Osman snitched me out and that the UNSC security council has already decided what do next with Yamato?"

"Rather simply put, but yes" was Hood's curt response.

"Well I guess this is this it then..." said Lasky dejectedly. If they knew everything, there was no way he'd be able to wiggle out of a court-martial.

"I myself am surprised, but no, it isn't"

Well that was certainly unexpected.

"So... let me get this straight. You're NOT court martialing me?"

"Trust me, if I had it my way you'd be driving a garbage truck on some backwater planet for the next 30 years, but your erm 'relationship' with this ship-woman is what I suspect is the only reason she's on our side at all. You stuck your neck on the line for her. She knows that. She trusts you."

"And I'm sure you know all too well that being on Yamato's bad side would be detrimental for UNSC interests right?"

"Indeed. You're walking a **very** fine line Lasky, but as long as you are... cooperative with our future orders, I think the high council will be willing to overlook... let's see here... five counts of witholding crucial information from HIGHCOM, sending a team of Spartans to what could only be described as a rogue mission, undocumented use of UNSC equipment, and reckless endangerment of UNSC personell for a non HIGHCOM authorized operation. I'm not missing anything am I Lasky?"

"... no sir..."

"Alright, then I'm glad we could come to an agreement. Your next assignment is codenamed Taskforce: Pacific. I'm sending the details to your holopad right now."

"On a personal note, I'm not a huge fan of those ONI spooks. Sneaky bastards they are. If I were in your shoes, I don't think I would have let them get at Yamato either."

Now it all made sense. Under normal circumstances, Lasky's magnitude of offenses simply couldn't be excused, but it seemed like Hood had some kind of personal vendetta against ONI, and by not court martialing him, would prevent them from getting their hands on Yamato in the future. Had ONI managed to step on everyone's toes?

"Oh yeah. One more thing."

"What's that?" inquired Lasky.

"We've found your missing Frigate... and another one".

Author's notes:

Oh look, another shipgirl.

Which one you ask?

Find out next time! (Or PM me if you really gotta know right now)


	35. Pacific

**SHIELD WORLD DESIGNATE REQUIEM**

 **MISSION SITE DESIGNATED 'DAWN'S HIDEAWAY' – REQ-901-C – THE VAULT**

 **ACCESS HALL TO CENTRAL CHAMBER**

 **THREE MINUTES (REQUIEM LOCAL TIME) SINCE MISSION FAILURE**

Spartan Matt Clarke observed the Constructor Sentinels as they flitted around the hallway, slowly repairing the damage inflicted on the walls, ceiling, and floor as a result of the titanic battle that had occurred. A formation of three Onyx-type Sentinels stared back, their weapons inactive – for now.

His own firearm was safely holstered on his back, the safety on. No amount of 9.5x40mm wouldn't have any effect on the shipkillers anyway, and he wasn't about to try anything that could provoke the Sentinels into adding them to their kill-list.

Spartan Richard Michaelson had left already, 'carrying' Spartan Jeremy Martinez out of the structure to where their Pelican was waiting – and from there, out to UNSC _Decima_. The frigate's crew was quite adamant about not approaching the Forerunner complex after they were informed of the particular grade of Sentinels in the local area. Clarke didn't blame them for their caution.

To his right, the Master Chief sat next to the… reincarnated IJN-battleship-woman, doing… something. When Clarke had inquired as to what, he had only got three words in return. "Emergency damage control," the Chief had stated. Clarke had backed off after that, his mind once again teetering close to the breaking point as he had contemplated just how that could possibly- ' _NO, NO, NO, **DON'T** GO THERE!_ '

He waited in silence for another two minutes, gazing around the hall as the clouds of Sentinels gradually flowed from damaged section to damaged section. When it came, he was caught unaware – the sudden boom of boilers kicking back online, a massive engine guttering to life once more… and then fading to a low hum. The SPARTAN-IV swiveled around to face the Chief, catching himself right as he was about to draw his BR85 out of reflex, and gently lowered his arm away from the weapon.

"Shouldn't be long. Just need to build up some steam- ah!" The woman flinched in pain. "Keel might be slightly more damaged than I thought. Oh…" An expression crossed Yamato's face – one that Clarke didn't like one bit. "There's an AP shell loaded into turret number one, starboard barrel. Disarming it now…"

"Please don't shoot it off?" Clarke couldn't help it. "I don't think those Sentinels would appreciate it very much. And those combat-types are capable of outright vaporizing Covenant capital ships if they get angry."

If Yamato was in any way unnerved by this news, she didn't outwardly show it. Instead, she glanced to her starboard-side, giving Clarke that same expression as before, when she explained just what she was. "No. I am merely… removing the propellant charges. The barrels themselves will require repairs, and number one's starboard barrel shall need to be replaced altogether."

There was a pause. Then…

"Oh hell no. No. Yamato, as Fireteam Apex's leader, I respectfully request that you make damned sure that that barrel is properly disposed of. Throw it into space, toss it into Epoloch Minor up there, it doesn't matter – just, for the love of God, please, please, don't let Martinez get at it."

Yamato took a deep breath, held it, and then exhaled. The sound of her turbine-heartbeat- _whatever_ grew slightly louder. "Why?"

"Because he'll go absolutely nucking futs with it. An infantry-scale firearm with the effects of a 460mm cannon? He'll engineer it into a gauss rifle to shoot down suborbital Covenant battlecruisers – and this time, the recoil from that will kill him."

"How soon will you be ready to move?" The Chief finally spoke again.

"My keel – my spine's overstressed. Being tossed around the room was a bit too much. Ordnance has been safely stowed away, though, and the fire in the forward kitchens has been put out-"

"Wait, fire?"

"Armor belt was breached and the mess took a direct hit. I am grateful that your frigates only have fifty-millimeter secondaries."

"…Most of her firepower was in the MAC. You got lucky – one of your initial salvoes set off the Dawn's starboard cache of Archers – secondary detonations all up her… length. That outright crippled her from the start, especially after she lost her MAC too."

"Oh." Another deep breath. "The port shafts… need replacement. Far port shaft has been fused to the hull."

Clarke sighed, mentally bracing himself. "And in ship-made-flesh terms, that means…"

"One propeller shaft would be detrimental, but can be compensated for. Two shafts… it is comparable to a severed heel cord. In short, my port leg is unable to propel me forward."

SPARTAN-IV-311 glanced at the Chief, then back down to the fallen battleship.

"Shit."

* * *

UNSC INFINITY (INF-101)

CAPTAIN'S QUARTERS

Captain Lasky powered up his personal holopad, and sure enough, a new encrypted file named "PACIFIC" had popped up. He prompted his device to begin the de-encryption process.

"Retinal Identification Required" stated the device in its monotone voice. A small binocular-looking gadget popped out of the top, and Lasky compliantly let it scan him.

"User Authorized. De-encryption protocols complete"

Taskforce: Pacific

Classification Code CDN-18342

Authorized Personnel Only

Overview:

The taskforce's main objective is to integrate the newly discovered ship-beings into an effective special operations striking force that will work alongside conventional forces to secure UNSC interests. These ship-beings, though expressing an innate desire to fight, must not be allowed to operate autonomously, as they seem to lack basic knowledge of modern technology as well as UNSC military doctrine. The solution that Taskforce: Pacific proposes is to "pair" each ship-being that is discovered with a Spartan or ODST operative. In such a way, the UNSC will be able to utilize the extreme combat potential that each ship-being brings to the table while at the same time providing them with guidance in a universe that they are completely unfamiliar with.

So far, two of these ship-beings have turned up, all at or around sites of Forerunner origin. Strange slipspace readings from other Forerunner installations in UNSC held territory indicate that more are likely on their way.

Integration of these ship-beings into the UNSC military would be an incredible boost to our special operations capability and is of paramount importance.

Team 1: Yamato and Sierra 117 "Master Chief"

Given their brief history together, this pairing was quite logical. Yamato has also displayed some degree of trust towards the Chief. Their respective combat abilities complement each other's quite effectively. Yamato, simply put, is a nigh-unstoppable powerhouse that uses brute force to overcome enemy opposition. Naturally, this draws all enemy attention (and fire) squarely to her. The Chief on the other hand is a master of using such distractions to slip behind enemy lines and complete mission objectives, whether its sabotaging a fuel line or placing a charge onto a critical reactor. Simply put, having them work together exponentially increases what they could accomplish by their lonesome.

Special Note - Takao:

Takao was recovered from a slipspace rupture on the shield word of Trevelyan not more than a few days ago. Like Yamato, Takao claims to be the heavy cruiser IJN Takao in human form. After questioning, we have concluded that she comes from the same place as Yamato. At this point, we have more than enough reason to believe that there exists an alternate version of humanity where ship-beings are used as combat troops to fight an unknown and possibly alien threat. Research has begun on reverse-engineering forerunner slipspace portals to gain access to this seemingly parallel universe.

Team 2: Takao and ODST Lee

Corporal Lee was formerly part of the Rapid Offensive Picket of the 105th Shock Troops Division, 8th Battalion, Team Delta-Charlie. On assignment to a classified world under Covenant loyalist control to recover a forerunner artifact. The ONI planners failed or refused to provide proper intel and his entire company save himself and his squad leader were wiped out. Lee's training and strategies are primarily ambush and multi-strike attacks. Takao's flexibility and speed when compared to Yamato makes her an ideal pair with the ODST who relies on much the same speed, concealment and flexibility.

Special Note - Dawn:

She was found by a marine under one of our bases on Requiem after a slipspace rupture. Her injuries are consistent with the ones that Yamato inflicted on the "abyssallized" Dawn, and her appearance temporally co-incides with the abyssal's disappearance. She was able to identify herself as the destroyed frigate USNC _Forward Unto Dawn_ before appearing to succumb to her injuries. She has been moved to a secure facility in orbit. However, it is not known whether or not she will ever wake up.

Current task: Both Lee and Takao are being sent to the Infinity. They will be stationed there for a few days before they are scheduled to perform a test that will evaluate their ability to work as a unit. It is your objective to oversee that nothing happens to them until then. Another thing to note: Takao is not to be informed of Yamato's existence for now.

Yamato is need of medical attention. However, she seems to be capable of healing herself given the right materials. Provide her with any resources that she requests so that she is back to full combat capability as soon as possible.

Report any new information or developments regarding ship-beings to HIGHCOM.

Lasky had just finished reading the document when his personal communication device started beeping.

"Captain, this is the recovery team. Yamato has has been secured and is on her way back to the Infinity"

Well this was certainly unexpected. The last time he checked, Yamato had been completely immobilized deep within the caverns and none of the Spartans could move her. He had anticipated the recovery to take far longer and possibly involve a demolitions team to carve a giant path through the cave system followed by an airlift.

"So Yamato was able to walk herself out then?" inquired Lasky.

"Well no... I'll spare you the details, but lets just say it involved half a mile of steel cable, a whole ton of human ingenuity, and an M312 Heavy Recovery Vehicle."

...

"Remind me to inform high command that they don't pay their combat engineers nearly enough. Lasky out."

Captain Lasky sighed as he turned off his comms device. This was going to be a long week.


	36. Lee

**UNSC VANGUARD (BB-107)**

 **INTERVIEW ROOM**

What passed for an interview room resembled more of an interrogation room. It was completely empty save for a steel table, two chairs and a single light that flickered from time to time. A muscular man dressed in the characteristic black uniform worn by the iconic ODSTs sat alone at one end of the table. A myriad of medals pinned on the left side of the jacket and the stripes on his shoulder denoted the greying man as a Captain with a long and distinguished service.

With a hiss of hydraulics the door on the other side of the room opened, and a woman with an ONI uniform took a seat to face him. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, black hair cut close to her head and an impassive expression on her face. The woman sighed, placing a small hollow disk on the table between them. The metallic disk looked to be the size and shape of the bagel, the hollow space in the center housing a blue crystal of some sort.

"So Captain Cinead, you were a part of Team Delta-Charlie during the recent Operation Reclamation?" She asked, of course she didn't need to ask him what she already knew but it was still standard operating procedure.

"Yoo're ONI lass, ye should know everthin' frae uir numbers to how we got our behinds kicked in by the Covies. So what do ye say we get to th' paint shall we?" The man grumbled, his gravelly voice oddly fitting with his thick Scottish accent.

Nodding once, the woman tapped a small silver button on the disk she had laid out on the table. The crystal embedded in the disk lighting but and a holographic screen burst to life between the two. The darkened room was bathed in the dim blue glow of the hologram. A series of images and video clips separated into various screens until the image and personal documentation of an young man with crew-cut black hair and a somewhat mixed but recognizable oriental features.

"Corporal Lee…Xin An?" The woman said, leaning forwards to get a close look at the name.

"Aye, lots of us struggled until the lad told us to call just him Lee." Cinead laughed, the large man giving her a huff of a laugh.

He seemed like a jolly older man, and it was no wonder he was known as 'Pappy' within the 8th Batallion.

The agent nodded and brought up another document on the hologram, this one more of a letter. "In your highly… colourful report you recommended Corporal Lee for SPARTAN IV conversion, why exactly?"

"Why? Th' lad's th' best fighter I've ever seen. If yoo've seen how he kept us alive ye would'nt be askin' me that!" The Captain exclaimed, gesturing to the video that played on the hologram that was captured by his helmet.

"Captain, while I understand his knowledge of the terrain during the Operation was what kept the both of you alive you must understand. Corporal Lee was accepted into the ODSTs in a mere year, that on its own is incredible and some suspect foul play on his part!" She cleared her throat, calming herself.

She didn't know if it was envy or otherwise but whether by fortuitous circumstances or foul play there were always these people that climbed the ladder by pure chance whilst others could spend years trying to reach higher position to no avail.

"Regardless, you must understand that no matter how well he performed on this particular mission we can't simply elevate him to S-IV status. He's barely out of ODST training as he is. We cannot turn him into a super soldier due to the results of a single operation." She sighed.

"Th' lad's a loon but th' best fighter I've ever seen, If yoo've seen how he fought to keep us kickin' ye wouldn't be askin' me that." The captain leaned forward and stared at the ONI agent, his former mirth now gone.

"Imagine us, the old fool an' the new bloke trapped behin' enemy lines wi' some forerunner mcguffin. Our squad killed an' a full week until anyone could extract us." The grizzled veteran glowered at the agent, the woman knowing full well what the man was going to say next.

"Atween th' Covies 'at combed 'at area for us an' th' jungle we wouldnae stand a chance at survivin' lit alone finishin' th' mission if nae fur him. If I remember ye were the ones that denied us support after givin' us faulty intel." He said, eyes narrowing.

Unswayed by the implication of her organization's responsibility for the deaths of team Delta-Charlie, the ONI agent nodded. She was no stranger to receiving distrust and even outright contempt when dealing with UNSC personnel. While most other UNSC branches would cooperate with ONI, they were almost never happy about it, and it certainly didn't help when a squad that ONI 'requisitioned' for their own use wound up in body bags.

"You'll be pleased to know that while we can't go through with your recommendation of immediate S-IV conversion, we will be transferring him to a separate unit in order to verify his capabilities for ourselves." The agent said, bringing up another document on the hologram.

Captain Cinead raised his hand and swiped at the hologram to zoom in on the document. "Taskforce: Pacific, Whit woods 'at be?"

"That would be classified, all I'm authorized to tell you is it has something to do with a new program involving miniaturizing warship armaments. If he performs well he'll be considered for the S-IV procedure within the next year." The agent said, closing the hologram with a swipe of her hand.

"So the lad's on trial? I suppose that's better than th' alternative." The captain grumbled, getting up from his seat.

 **UNSC VANGUARD (BB-107)**

 **ATHWARTSHIP ARMORY**

The metallic clink and clatters of an MA2B Carbine's mechanical inner working was all that was heard in the armory of the UNSC Vindicator Light Battleship. He had always preferred the MA2B over the standard MA5 family- the shorter and lighter build of the weapon allowing him more mobility in combat. Plus, the additional capability of the use of shredder rounds was always welcome in times of need. Rows upon rows of weapons lay full of armaments ready to be put in the hands of eager marines. Only one locker was painted charcoal black, a locker full of Special Operations Command or SOCOM equipment stocked for the famed ODSTs.

Lee's Generation 2 ODST combat Battle Dress Uniform retained only a strip of the usual charcoal black. The rest of the armour was painted in a darkened tiger stripe jungle camo pattern. Even his visor was a darkened green color instead of the usual blue-silver of the ODSTs. Given his specialization in the hazardous condition, his superiors deemed the field modification acceptable. Another piece of non-standard equipment he carried was a lengthened combat knife- more of a machete that was used for equal parts jungle clearing and shanking enemies. The blade was carried in a sheath strapped to his left bicep that ran from under the shoulder pauldron to the blade's handle at his elbow for easy drawing. He did retain his M6/SOCOM pistol but holstered the weapon on his abdomen instead of the usual hip holster.

The tap of footsteps brought his attention upwards, the sight of an ONI officer so soon after their disastrous mission brought the bitter taste of bile to his mouth. He didn't have to like this woman but he did have to respect the chain of command, and if the stripes of her shoulder were accurate the agent outranked him by quite a bit.

Rising to attention, the ODST raised his hand in salute. "At ease Corporal." The woman acknowledged.

"The Vanguard will rendezvous with the Infinity in 0500 hours, you are to pack whatever personal effects and report to Captain Lasky." The woman said, a tapping a few keys on her holographic emitter to send Lee's clearance codes.

A quick glance at the details of his posting from his helmet's internal HUD piqued the young man's interest. "Taskforce: Pacific Ma'am?" He asked.

"That information is all you need to know until you arrive at your new posting Corporal, so I suggest you get packing."

* * *

Author's note:

PM me your favorite Kancolle DD!

I just want to know for... uhhhh... data collection purposes. Yeah, that's the reason. Yup. Definitely not hinting at the next ship class to come into the Halo-verse. Nothing to see here. Move along.


	37. Trial

**UNSC INFINITY (INF-101)**

The silence was killing her... the Corporal seemed to be a nice enough person, but he was just so quiet. He seemed only to speak when he had to, or was spoken to first, a policy that she was unused to due to the constant hustle of her home port. The other shipgirls were always so active and noisy that sometimes it was hard to keep up with them all.

Takao was stealing glances at him, that much was very obvious. "If you want to ask me something, go ahead." He sighed, finally giving in to those large reddish eyes.

The woman beamed at him, Lee had to hold himself from smiling back despite the fact that his helmet hid his features. "Lee-san why do you always wear that helmet? We've been in our room for quite some time but you've yet to take it off."

So, she was curious as to what he looked like. At first, Lee had objected to staying in the same quarters with Takao. Warship or not, she was a woman, and it went against every armed forces doctrine dating back to the dawn of civilization for a man to share a room with a woman in a military setting. It was simply strange. Unfortunately, Captain Lasky claimed it was an order because this business with warship-women was to be kept under wraps, and staying together would ensure minimal contact with the rest of the crew.

"I don't like being in the dark." He eventually responded.

"Aren't you a bit too old to be afraid of the dark?" Takao said, a small smile framing her features.

"No, it's a saying that means I don't like to be caught unawares." Tapping his helmeted head with his finger.

"This helmet had what is called Visual Intelligence System or VISR. It links to an implant called a Neural Interface inside my skull, it gives me everything from thermal imaging, motion sensors and a wireless link the local infrastructure." The corporal explained.

Takao clapped her hands, releasing her knee. "So it's like type 21 air search and type 22 surface search radars that Fusou is fitted with!"

"W-Well if you add around six hundred years of technological advancement I guess you could call it that." Lee said, taken aback by the woman's sudden outburst.

"So… you like having all hands ready at general quarters at all times? That's no good, you'll strain your body and mind if you don't allow yourself to relax!" She heavy cruiser said, suddenly rushing forwards and grabbing the soldier by his shoulders.

"It's fine, I'm used to it." Lee assured, surprised when he got a scowl from her in return.

Lee almost gagged when his back hit the side of his bed, the woman was strong! Merely having his back pushed against the bed forced the air from his lungs.

He was slouched with his back against the wall, Takao's slender fingers gripping his pauldrons and holding him in place. She hovered above him, the stern expression on her face would have been more threatening if her breasts weren't pushed against the lower half of his visor. She straddled his waist, effectively immobilizing him, even trying to sit up was fruitless as all 15,490 metric tons of compressed warship was determined to hold him in place.

"A-Alright-Alright, just let me go please!" Lee begged. Takao relented, pulling back and before his feet.

Lee reached around the back of his ODST helmet and popped the seal with a hiss, the clamps that attached the helmet to his head and gave him EVA capabilities releasing their hold. Lee twisted the headgear to each side before slowly pulling the protective equipment off. The way Takao was watching with ad hoc attention to inspect his facial features made him somewhat uncomfortable.

Lee had pale skin. While not as pale as certain Spartans, he was certainly pale for an Arcadian. Spending nearly a year sealed inside an enclosed suit didn't help too much with that. He had a well squared jaw and youthful features. Despite the bags under his eyes, he was rather handsome. Short crew-cut hair that naturally stood suited him well, and he held sort of a serious expression mixed with a light scowl. If his face could be said to have a blemish, it would be the large mark on his left cheek that seemed to be a mix between a slash and a burn that ran from his right jaw to his cheekbone.

Takao leaned forwards once more, going on all fours to get a closer look at his face. Reaching up with her right hand, the Cruiser-woman brushed her fingers along the scar. "Where did you get this?"

"A squidhea- Sangheili, energy sword." Using their species name often left the bitter taste of bile in Lee's mouth. Yet he refused to call them 'elites' to him, killing civilians by the billions did not deserve right to be called that.

"Oh, is it one of those plasma based weapons that I've been told about?" Takao asked, earning a nod in response.

Takao took some time to examine his features closely. It seemed that she probably wouldn't get the chance to see him without the helmet in a while. He looked young, certainly the same age if her if not slightly younger. He also had telltale signs of exhaustion and stress, which was something she had seen in the admiral many a time when a campaign dragged on for longer than he was comfortable with.

Her thoughts were cut short when the reinforced door of the quarters hissed open.

"So how are you settling in Takao… Uh…"

Lasky bore witness to a rather scandalous, view of Takao down on three limbs. Her left palm on the ground and both knees on either side of the new arrival's waist. Her right hand seemed to be holding Lee's face affectionately. He had thought the two would get along well together but not like this!

"I'll just come back later..." He said quickly, making a panicked exit after closing the door via the command console.

The two were left in silence before slowly looking back at each other, Takao's face now as red as a strawberry when she figured out what they must have looked like. "This isn't what it looks like!" She squealed, running out of the room in pursuit of the captain.

Lee sighed, slipping his helmet back onto his head and hearing the satisfying hiss of the locking mechanism clamping the headgear back where it belonged.

 **UNSC CENTRAL HQ**

 **BRAVO-6 COMPLEX**

 **EARTH**

The holographic images served barely any purpose, since the only thing they displayed were the mere silhouettes of various UNSC and UEG council members. They were all the same as far as he was concerned; take away the ominous voices, the near limitless power over governance of entire systems, and you get the same men and women on their high horses thinking they could decide the fates of billions on a whim. Yet it was these people that kept the UNSC running, these people that kept colonies in check and humanity unified. He hated to admit it, but they needed him just as much as he needed them.

"Admiral? Fleet Admiral Terrance hood?" One of the individuals called.

"Yes I heard you the first time. My orders are to give the newest members of the taskforce a test suited to their skills. I ask again, need we make this trial so deadly?" The aged man proclaimed, his raised voice displaying protest to their plans.

"Yes admiral it is… regrettable but we must determine the absolute maximum capabilities of these ship-women. To do this, we need to sufficiently motivate one of them" announced the gratingly casual voice of one of the male council members.

"Get it done Admiral. We may be on the precipice of a threat that equals that of the Covenant" said another council member before the multitude of holographic projections died out from his desk.

Hood raised a hand to his face and rubbed his wrinkled features. He had just been asked by the most powerful members of the UEG to subject an un-augmented human to a trial that wasn't too different from one that had nearly killed the Master Chief many years ago. The boy was a soldier, an ODST no less but still just barely out of his teens. This was madness!

"Don't you dare die kid, because I won't know how to forgive myself for this if you do" the admiral whispered to himself. Hood was no stranger to ordering men into the line of fire, but it was always for a worthy cause.

This he wasn't so sure about.

 **UNSC INFINITY (INF-101)**

Takao had gotten acquainted to the inner workings of the Infinity, and she was truly impressed by how far this version of humanity had progressed. While saddened that she was considered an ancient relic as a sea-faring warship, she could see the fighting spirit of humanity was still strong.

The Corporal was an excellent example of a person whose past was clouded with hatred and anger. As a shipgirl, Takao was a spiritual being formed partly from the emotions of her crew when she had still possessed a steel hull. She had felt their pride when they were assigned the most powerful cruiser afloat at the time, the joy and camaraderie that came with serving aboard her. Even their anguish at the sight of her being captured and sunk as a target ship.

As a result, she could get a general feel of a person's more prominent emotions. In Lee she seemed to get a jumbled mix of pain, hatred, duty, care... etc. It was a confusing chorus of positive and negative.

He had told her everything yet completely nothing, giving her general descriptions of his life before and during his service but avoiding details. This man was an enigma, one that she would solve.

"Lee-chan… why do eat that?" Takao asked, eyeing the brownish bar in the ODST's armoured hand.

Lee uncurled his armoured fingers to look at the half-eaten bar in his hand, the silver wrapper glinting under the light of their room. The UNSC ration bar was usually eaten by special forces like himself during emergency situations, odourless, almost colourless, and most certainly tasteless.

Swallowing the chunk in his mouth, the ODST held his hand out to the ship woman. She took the bar and gave it a suspicious look before taking a small bite. She immediately regretted her decision because the bar tasted like mulched cardboard. She almost gagged attempting to swallow the vile substance that the Corporal called food

"Why do you eat that!?" She nearly yelled, passing the ration back to him.

"I'm used to it, eating normally takes for too long. Plus, people say I have no sense of taste." He answered, giving the woman a small smile.

Takao frowned. Despite her persuasion, the soldier hadn't even begun to relax. He seemed to be perpetually stressed and tense, like a part of him was somehow still on the battlefield.

Grabbing his hand, Takao dragged Lee from the small desk where he was seated. She all but ignored the string of surprised protests and questions that erupted from him at the disturbance of what passed for his mealtime.

The many mess halls of the Infinity were fairly empty since lunch wasn't for another hour. All 15,250 tons of Takao pretty much dragged the armoured man by his bicep. Resistance was futile, so the ODST resigned himself to his fate as he was pushed to one of the many tables in the centre of the mess hall.

"Stay here." Takao ordered, giving Lee a deadly glare as if to warn him against sneaking away.

Lee sighed, slipping his helmet on and turning the light cancellation on his VISR all the way up before closing his eyes for some rest. His mind drifted off to sleep. As such, he completely failed to register the arguing coming from the kitchen between Takao and the mess officer who had no idea why a random woman had just barged into his kitchen.

A heavenly scent filled Lee's nostrils as he slept. His dreams were filled with vague memories of his childhood on Arcadia surrounded by the lush greenery and quiet ambience that only a farming world could produce.

"Mmmmphh…" He mumbled as he woke up, changing his VISR back to normal setting.

He was greeting by Takao's smiling face, and he felt his heartstrings pull when he saw what she had dragged him here for. Apparently warships could cook, if the steaming rice, grilled redfish, and a sort of soup that he guessed was Miso was anything to indicate.

Pulling off his helmet, Lee turned to see that the marines and navy personnel were eyeing the two. Most male marines gave a jealous glare whilst the women giggled behind their hands, some discreetly and others just giving the pair a smirk. No doubt they were missing home cooking themselves.

Lee shifted his attention back to Takao, and the shipgirl looked at him bashfully.

"I-It's been awhile I served meals like this so it may not be good but… please try it."

"T-thank you Takao." Was all Lee said before picking up the chopsticks and digging in. He assumed her comment about the food was due to the rations that Japanese sailors ate in her era but didn't think too much of it.

Lee couldn't remember the last time he had bothered to eat a proper meal. It couldn't have been too long ago, but since becoming an ODST he had found assignment after assignment waiting for him. He simply didn't have time anymore. That being the case, he didn't know if it was simply due to the time he spent deprived of fresh food, or the quality meal itself, but he daresay he hadn't tasted anything so good before.

Takao's maroon eyes watched with glee as the Corporal ate. She thought about telling him to slow down, but truth be told she honestly enjoyed watching him wolf down her food. She was not as good as Houshou-san when it came to cooking, but she was at least confident in her abilities. Her thoughts drifted to the rest of the fleet. Where the little destroyers eating well? How was Atago and the rest of her sisters? What of the carriers she would usually escort? All these questions flowed into her mind.

Takao was so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed the Corporal finish his meal and place his helmet on the table. Just as he was about to lift the headgear back to cover his head he caught her troubled expression and gave her a look akin to a sad understanding.

"You miss them don't you?" He said, shaking the heavy cruiser out of her musings.

"Yes, how did you know?" Takao asked. It was a stupid question, really, but Lee didn't feel the need to comment on that.

"An individual ship is nothing without her fleet. I know for a fact that there are probably more of you." He explained.

He was sharp and logical, which was something Takao found simultaneously both great and infuriating. "Well yes, you hit the nail right on the head with that one." She smiled.

"We'll find some way to get you back, it may not be the eggheads or HIGHCOM, since they're more excited to keep you here but I'll do anything I can… I promise." He said.

Looking into those deep blue eyes and his serious expression, the Japanese cruiser could tell he was telling the truth.

"Somehow I don't doubt you…" she sighed.

Takao didn't dare tell him, because it would be far too embarrassing. The young man's dark blue eyes reminded her of the deep blue ocean… a deep open ocean in which ships like her would belong.

"You would make a good wife and mother by the way. Thank you for the meal." The ODST said suddenly, slipping his helmet back onto his head.

"W-wife...mother?" Takao immediately felt her twelve Kampon boilers work in overdrive almost immediately, her cheeks heating up and changing to a deep crimson. A message raced through her mind - "Extreme heat build-up in boiler rooms".

"Umm…" Lee mumbled, backing up to the seat of the booth. Was steam suppose to be coming out of her ears?

He could feel heat radiate from her skin- or hull depending on who you asked. His concern was cut short when a message was announced through the intercom. "ODST , Service Number 61108-1771-LXA Corporal Lee Xin An, and IJN Takao, report mission-ready to briefing room 38 immediately."

"Well- time to get to work. You get your armament harness and I'll get my gear." Lee said, leaving the mess hall and leaving Takao with both her hands holding onto her steaming cheeks and trying to control her temperature.

* * *

Author's Note:

Well, that was a change of pace. I can hear the shipping puns already.

However, this was meant to be more of a lighthearted introduction and **not** a serious implication of a romantic relationship. I just wanted to let you all know that before you all get up in arms about how this supposed "ship" seemed so sudden and without any buildup.

As for last chapter's data collection, the most popular DD was by far-

Well if you play a certain game, lets just say that this destroyer can launch a 16 torp wide wall of skill.

I'm sure some of you can guess.


	38. Oops

So, I dun goofed. In the last chapter, there was an entire missing section about 1,000 words long. It's not super critical to the the plot itself, but it's still fairly important. I updated the chapter and it should still be there now, so i suggest giving the chapter a re-read so you don't miss anything.

* * *

Poi


	39. Update and Cover!

So, real life happened again :/

That being said, I have quite a bit more content that's almost ready to be released. I just have to find the time to polish it all up first.

This fic finally has a real cover now. Big thanks to Cpl Leon for making it, he's an incredibly talented artist :)

Let me know what you all think!

Also, Halo Wars 2 just came out. I sure wonder what would happen if the Banished ran into a few shipgirls...


	40. Trial (pt 2)

**UNSC BELLICOSE (FFG-828)**

 **MISSION BRIEFING ROOM**

Both ODST and Heavy Cruisers gave a curt salute to the ONI agent, Takao giving the woman a look of veiled malice when her gaze lingered on her form. She had already gotten a few looks of disapproval of her attire, some of the servicewomen talking in hushed whispers whenever she walked past while others gave her a glare of undulated envy.

The men were arguably worse, gawking at her with their jaws practically on the floor. They largely relented when she was around Lee though, so she tended to stick around him. Not to mention Captain Lasky had forbidden her from interacting with the crew, leading her to excuse herself from anyone that tried to talk to her.

All this attention from a mysterious busty beauty earned the good Corporal a mixed reaction from the crew.

Thankfully Lee had told her that he either ignored them or claimed to have selective hearing and memory. Often he said he could simply 'tune' certain noises, people and even memories out. She didn't know if this was a product of his training or not.

Lee had made himself perfectly clear that she should never trust or get too friendly with anyone from ONI, the UNSC's intelligence office. According to him, they were the kind of people to send troopers like himself to die if they though the mission was worth the risk. They would do anything and sacrifice anyone on a whim for their own goals without regard for the lives of anyone involved. Safe to say Lee had a rather personal grudge with ONI.

"At ease." The woman finally said.

"Permission to speak ma'am." Lee said.

"Granted Corporal." She responded, nodding at the soldier.

"Why are we on board one of the Stridents and not the main operations briefing deck?" He asked.

"I was getting to that. You're on board this Frigate because you're to go on a trial mission." She said.

"Trial mission… Why? As you can see we're fully combat ready." Takao protested, about to continue before a firm armoured hand held her shoulder.

Turning her head to face Lee, she saw his helmeted head shaking slowly as if to tell her protest was futile.

The ONI agent cleared her throat, directing the pair's attention to the Japanese beauty. "Because, IJN Takao, we at ONI aren't necessarily convinced that letting UNSC elite Operators Troops such as the Master Chief function autonomously with the likes your kind is an effective distribution of resources. This Taskforce that Admiral Hood has assembled is a mistake!"

She released a breath, steadying her voice. "Unless you can perform up to the UNSC's considerable expectations, we'll declare Taskforce: Pacific a failed project and… reassign its members to their proper posts."

Takao fumed inside, giving the ONI agent a glare whilst even the calm and serious Corporal Lee's expression turned into a scowl under his polarized visor.

"You are to assault a facility by any means at your disposal, all your available intel and equipment will be displayed in the Strident's staging area. For your sakes, don't disappoint us." She warned, giving them a stern look before turning away.

-  
Lee leaned forwards, placing both palms on the edge of the holographic table. The map displayed a compound, an abandoned older UNSC base established in the midst of the Human-Covenant war. Already he could see there was something wrong with this training 'simulation' as the ONI spook had told them.

The base was more or less a standard configuration for a Forward Operating base with a communication relays, a watchtower for each corner of the facility, and reinforced concrete walls surrounding the compound. What actually lay within the compound was not displayed.

The region their 'simulation' was supposed to take place in was a desert on some UEG forsaken desert world. Lee's ODST bodysuit would more than allow him to operate on the chosen terrain, and the photo reactive panels on his armour could compensate as far as camouflage go. It wouldn't be easy, but he was sure that his equipment and training would allow him to prevail.

Takao on the other hand was another story. If he was said to be at a disadvantage in the sandy terrain, then Takao had nearly all the odds stacked against her. The desert, quite frankly, was the literal opposite of the marine environment that Takao was at home in. It really wasn't all that hard to deduce that ONI was setting them up for failure.

The holographic map displayed the landscape as nearly completely flat terrain, with scattered sand dunes not tall enough to hide behind while standing. With Takao's massive radar and heat signature, it didn't need to be said that she would be spotted miles away.

"What do you think Lee-chan?" Takao asked.

The ODST grunted, visor fixed on the map. "Bad terrain, no concealment, lots of cover but only in and around the base. The four watchtowers house turrets, M3062 Automated Heavy Machine Gun Turrets to be exact. Each one of these towers house two that overlooked each side of the FOB, and their overlapping fire could shred apart infantry and even light vehicles with enough time." He sighed.

Crossing one arm over his chestplate and resting the other arm's elbow against it, his index finger and thumb pinched his helmet's chin-guard. "We won't get in undetected, we have no cover going in, and we'll be spotted immediately. We don't know if they have mines or traps, nor the number of training drones or what they're equipped with."

"So we assume the worst then Lee-chan?"

Takao grinned. Part of her relished the challenge whilst part of her was intimidated by the sheer amount of unknown factors

The whole exercise was rigged, with so many odds stacked against them. Both of them were uniquely unsuited to the terrain and climate and the shoddy intel was no doubt intentional. She gave a sidelong glance at the ODST, he probably didn't know what the suffix she added behind his name meant. Suppressing a giggle, the heavy cruiser so enjoyed teasing the blissfully ignorant ODST sometimes.

"Do we have anything we can do to gain an edge?" Takao asked.

"There is one thing… but it's risky, really risky and possibly painful for me…他妈的…(Tā mā de…)" He cursed under his breath.

Takao cocked her head to the side, curious of what Lee was thinking. The soldier sighed, noticing her questioning expression.

"You know what ODST means right?" He asked, unsure how Takao was uninformed about the nature of his branch of service.

"Orbital Drop Shock Trooper…ODST, we drop from orbit and came about by taking inspiration from the paratroopers of your era." He explained, to which the Japanese woman's eyes widened in shock.

"So you jump… from up here, all the way down there?" She exclaimed, baffled by how a human could survive such a fall.

"We use Single Occupant Exo-atmospheric Insertion Vehicles, and we usually make it down in one piece. The key word here being usually" He explained.

Realizing what he was suggesting "So you plan is to-" She began, dark crimson eyes looking to him with worry.

"Yep, I hit the ground right in the middle of the base and distract them while you land in a Pelican outside and use your artillery to blast the ground to clear any mines before going in" he said.

"In the open ground away from the structures, I'd be a sitting duck. Not to say that you aren't going to be a sitting duck either, but unlike you, I can't shrug off artillery blasts. My only real chance is to use the SOEIV to get to cover and wait for you."

Lee pointed to a spot on the map, where the walls looks to have collapsed from an attack the old FOB suffered during the war. "Avoid this area. The hole was made by plasma during the war and it's an obvious trap. They're expecting you to use this route." He warned.

"Don't worry Lee-chan, I can use my depth charges and breaching explosives in a pinch!" She confidently said, puffing her rather generous chest out.

Deliberately shifting his gaze away from her chest, Lee nodded.

"Just don't get cocky. No plan survives contact with the enemy."


	41. Trial (pt 3)

**UNSC BELLICOSE (FFG-828)**

 **HEV LAUNCH ROOM**

Lee clamped his rifle onto the magnetic hardpoint in his HEV pod, his M6/SOCOM pistol firmly in his abdominal holster as he pulled himself inside. He poked his head out to see Takao fastening her armaments on. The Harness-like device housing two miniature turrets whilst a two wing-like protrusions extended from her feet like heels. A curtain-like construction that looked like the hull of a wet-navy ship formed around her hips. Under her chest, pipe-like constructs that must have once been Takao's ship superstructure wrapped around her waist and lower ribcage. The most notable feature were the three massive turrets on her back. He swore if their mission was to seduce the enemy she would win every single engagement.

The moment Takao's eyes locked on his, the cruiser rushed towards his HEV. The added weight of her armaments causing the metal deck to shake and groan in protest. "Be careful and don't die, hold out until I arrive…please?" She pleaded.

"Of course" He said, allowing her to back away as the reinforced glass canopy of the HEV came down and sealed him into the pod.

 **AIRSPACE OVER TEST SITE**

Takao watched with worried eyes as he watched the odd metal coffin-like construct shut and she loaded up onto the Pelican dropship awaiting her.

Takao fiddled with her large cufflinks and armaments, the harness shifting with a series of metallic creaks. She looked out the window towards the abandoned base and saw Lee's ODST pod streaking towards the ground. Suddenly, bursts of bright orange flak erupted around the pod.

Live ammunition in a training exercise? For all their advancement, was humanity willing to sacrifice the lives of their soldiers like mere currency? Flashing memories of her time as a warship blurred in her mind. She loved her home, Japan that is. However, her country's action during the war were abominable even to its own servicemen.

This 'training' exercise drew uncomfortable comparisons to the past, both hers and her country's past. "Pilot, what is the meaning this!?" She yelled.

The pilot looked over his shoulder at his cargo, ONI had told him of the live rounds being used. They had told him that he wouldn't be targeted. That was all that mattered to him anyways - ONI had a tendency to make whoever didn't do as they said disappear… permanently.

As the Pelican Dropship's engines hummed Takao could heavy the barks of gunfire below. The plan was for Lee to buy time for her to use her main battery guns to blast a straight path through and detonate any mines in her way. That was including fighting off any exterior defenders and automated turrets.

"He won't last that long…" She whispered.

She crossed her arm under her bust, leaning the elbow of her other arm on it. She hummed in thought, for every second she delayed it was another bullet that could hit him. Takao Huffed in frustration as she made her final decision.

"What's our altitude?" She asked, grasping the handles that were mounted on the sides of her armament harness.

"We're slightly less than five hundred meters over the round but we're still over where the Corporal had estimated any mines would be placed. Wait-what, hey what are you doing!?" The pilot yelled, watching the woman lift her massive turrets toward the rear ramp of the aircraft.

"Sorry about your aircraft!" She apologized, her honey sweet voice contrasting her intentions.

"Oh come on, I just had this bird serviced!" He begged, pulling the controls and prepared himself for the impact.

The sound of a single 127mm secondary cannon going off in an enclosed space was jarring, the armored embarking and disembarking ramp of the Pelican crumpled and simply blew out the back. Takao jumped, the pilot thankfully having the consciousness to lower the altitude as much as he could at the time to soften her impact before pulling the smoking and damaged dropship away.

Takao felt her old battle instincts flare up when she smelled the telltale scent of explosives, smoke and gunpowder. Despite how terrible conflict and violence was, it was her duty and purpose… she would be lying to herself if she didn't say she took pride in her combat abilities.

The moment she landed, a soft voice… a whisper that she had heard many a time in battle that she reasoned was her Command and Control center. "Impact on Keel, minor cracks detected in decks D and E."

The FOB lay some distance ahead of her, sporadic gunfire erupting from inside the base. She took that as a good thing, if the drones were still shooting that meant they still had a living target to shoot at. The roar of a turbine engine drew the Cruiser's eyes toward a dune behind her.

Through the mound of fine golden sand burst an olive green monstrosity of a war machine. Takao had been taught many things by her teammate, the ODST had been adamant in teaching her of what to expect and what to avoid in combat.

In his words, full sized warships of her make had become obsolete within half a century of their construction. It kind of hurt her feelings being called old- even if indirectly. Still, the corporal had her safety in mind so she listened to him. The first thing he told her was that most small Infantry shoulder carried weapons wouldn't harm her with the exception of the UNSC's Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine-920 or as he called it, the Railgun. Shoulder fired weapons wouldn't do anything to her thicker belt armour but hitting anywhere else such as her turrets or stern/bow sections would definitely hurt.

A 90mm M512 Smooth Bore High Velocity canon that could fire depleted uranium shells on the other hand could kill her outright if enough of them hit her vitals. These weapons were made to punch through ceramic-titanium A3 and Depleted uranium layered composite armour, her rolled homogenous steel armour didn't stand a chance against it.

Where the driver would usually be seated was a dome-like turret that housed a camera node that spun toward her. The camera lenses seemed to narrow at her for a moment, as if in shock that she was there. The thing soon snapped out of it and rotated turret towards her.

Sparks flew as the Scorpion's .50 caliber coaxial gun opened up on Takao and tracer rounds pinged off her hull.

Takao leaped into action, diving to the right just as the tank fired its cannon. The shell impacted just above where she once stood, and sand exploded in a shower of particles that obscured her vision. A ratcheting clank signaled the tank's mechanism reloading another shell, an action she would not allow it to complete.

Takao dashed sideways, using her 35 knot flank speed to her advantage. The Scorpion tank tracked her with its turret with no problem. However, it failed to keep its strong frontal armour facing her due to the terrain, allowing the ship-woman to dash to the weaker side of the tank. In truth her 200mm/.50 caliber 3rd Year Type GÔ (Mark II) naval canons were more than enough to smash the tank even if they didn't penetrate its armour, but she didn't want to take a chance.

In their five centuries of advancement, the science of composite armour that was brand new at the time of her construction was mastered by the UNSC. The steady angled plates of the Main Battle Tank could in theory defeat Takao's rounds. However, all that technology still did nothing to protect the tank from sheer momentum.

Six miniature 200mm naval guns fired a full salvo of Type 91 Armour-Piercing shells from Takao's Type E turrets.

The compressed shipgirl shells struck the tank along the side of its hull under its turret. Immediately, flames streamed out in jets from the penetration holes and sparks erupted from the turret ring of the vehicle. Apparently one of her shells found the ammunition inside the tank and ignited it. For a moment the flames seemed to die before a violent crack sent the entire turret flying high into the air - it had quite simply 'popped' off when the ammo detonated.

Takao had no time to celebrate her kill as the distinct rumbled of more engines found their way to her ears. Her air and surface radar found several targets-more Scorpions and the scream of jet engines. Though normally her surface radar was used to detect ships on the surface of the open ocean and failed to work properly on land, the mostly flat terrain allowed her to detect larger things like tanks at least.

The aircraft that rapidly approached were going fast, she knew humans had invented jets but these were UNSC drones. The F-99 Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle or Wombat had no need for a pilot and thus no G limit in which a pilot would normally black out from the extreme gravitational forces. This resulted in an aircraft that was far more maneuverable than anything Takao had faced in the past. She had to think fast, her Type 89 127mm/ 5 inch dual purpose guns, Type 96 25mm/ 1 inch guns and Type 93 13.2mm/ 0.5 inch guns spun to face the oncoming aerial targets.

The tanks she could worry about in a while but the air targets she couldn't ignore. The angular drones were now visible in the cloudless desert, and diving on her with their weapons locked on. Equipped with a pair of the same M6088 ST/MMP Medusa missile pods used in the Sabres mounted on either side of the drone's engines. A single M955 ASW/AC 30mm autocannon spewed a mixed belt of tracer, armour piercing, Incendiary and armour piercing incendiary rounds.

The Wombats numbered six in total, flying in two squadrons of three drones each. As they approached in range, Takao's five inch dual-purpose guns slammed San Shiki Type 3 Anti-Aircraft shells into their chambers and fired. For all their advanced Anti-missile tracking systems and stealth, Takao used weapons that the UNSC and Covenant alike had long since dismissed as useless - Flak.

Shells detonated at their set altitudes, catching the drones unaware and blasting two in the first formation apart. The second flight of aircraft immediately split off in different directions whilst the single remaining drone from the first formation began loop back around as its late compatriots spiralled to the ground in flames.

The drones began to adapt, bobbing and weaving to avoid the deadly burst of fire from the ship-woman's multitude of AA guns. Two drones approached in a wide circle and formed up together, finally getting a clear lock during a momentary gap in the busty woman's field of explosive shrapnel.

"Kuso! " She cursed, feeling 30mm depleted uranium-tipped projectiles from the M955 hit her superstructure.

"Warning, topside frames B-10 to B- 30 damaged, small breeches detected. Aft torpedo launcher holed, unable to load. Top deck dented along the starboard side, 13.2mm AA gun mounts numbers 4-7 destroyed" Takao hissed in pain, despite being struck in her armaments and not her physical form- she still felt the pain as if it were her own body.

Grabbing one of her depth charges and hitting the arming fuse, the crimson-eyed beauty threw the explosive some distance away from her. The resulting blast did no real damage as Depth charges were concussive weapons used for submarine hunting and not as makeshift grenades. What the charge did do was kick up a massive cloud of smoke that she promptly ran into.

Although the drones possessed Infrared and thermal sights they couldn't get a good bead on the woman. All of the heated munitions she was throwing up for such a small target was upsetting their targeting system. This forced the drones to pull back, flying in a wide circle and constantly dodge and weave through the flak fire whilst trying to get the dust and sand to clear enough for them to lock onto her thermal signature. The drones performed a series of fly-by's firing randomly into the found in hopes of scoring a hit where it seemed her AA was fire with the most concentrated.

A sudden shift of movement from within the rapidly settling cloud prompted all drones to immediately shift their rotating cameras toward the source of the movement and turn to strafe their target once more. If the machines could feel surprise the drones certainly would when they saw it wasn't their target… but a silver canister that was thrown out of the improvised concealment.

From within the nearly settled dust of the cloud Takao's silhouette revealed itself. A huff satisfaction at the success of her plan was all that escaped Takao as her full complement of AA guns tracked the targets that were going in a straight line towards the fallen depth charge. One of her primary gun turrets fired, smacking her decoy depth charge.

The resulting concussive shockwave knocked the drones off their flight path, dropping their energy enough when they tried to stabilize from the shock for her flak batteries to smash them to pieces in flaming balls of debris.

She coughed hard a few times, gasping for air under the desert heat and her dry throat invaded by sand from being inside a cloud of dust and sand. "Ahh… I should get my funnels checked after this. Oh bother…" She sighed.

She removed her wrist from her throat as the cough fit died down, offering just enough time to hear the crack of a series of 90mm canons firing one after another. Before she could react she was blown to the side, a 90mm shell slamming into the side of her waist and another hitting her armaments harness, skin-coloured pieces of metal exploded outward from the shipgirl. Before Takao could even react to the pain, one last shell glanced off the side of her head in a shower of sparks and almost knocked her out.

A massive fireball erupted where Takao stood, caused by the equivalent of a few hundred pounds of compressed secondary ammunition cooking off.

The almost chlorine scent of naval fuel oil invaded her mouth, a wave of black oil exploded from within her throat. Vomiting her lifeblood onto the scorched sandy desert, Takao felt tears sting her eyes and travel down her cheeks from the intense pain. Daring to look down, she sighed in relief when it seemed better than it felt.

"200mm main gun turret knocked out, ammunition fire threat. Conning tower shock damage. Type 89 12.7cm dual purpose cannon blown up. Main belt and multiple bulkheads holed. " Her CiC once again alerting her to her damage.

Most of the penetrating power of the sabot projectile was slowed by her belt armour, passing through it and going through enough 100mm thick bulkheads to stop it from hitting her vital boilers. Her clothing had been charred from the explosion as well, a section of her side button-up coat now completely seared off and exposing her waist to the elements.

Her port side main gun turret was blackened and scorched, one of the barrels bent almost 90 degrees up midway along and the other split open like a trumpet. One of her dual purpose canons was missing, she spotted it on the ground some distance away. The turret must have been blown out when the shells exploded.

There was a decently sized hole in her waist, the skin deformed and twisted inwards like metal instead of flesh. Her wound didn't bleed anymore- her damage control crews had managed to stop the fuel leakage. Her exposed wound showed a small honeycomb pattern of metal that were her inner workings and bulkheads.

Her head rang from the glancing hit against her conning tower.

Takao got up, still combat capable and now very much angry. "Die!" She screamed, firing her remaining main battery guns at the three tanks.

Of the three tightly grouped armoured vehicles one was directly hit and immediately penetrated, the second was smashed by the sheer concussive forced and dented inwards-crushing the inner workings. The last had a shell detonate beneath the hull between its bogey tracks, quite literally flipping the multi-ton vehicle into the air before lying onto its side. It seemed to try and get up, its tracks rolling like an insect stuck upside down.

The Japanese woman fired her secondary batteries into the underside of the tank, penetrating and exploding within the vehicle.

Takao fumed for a moment, the rush of battle seeping out her. Her attention turned back to the base. Having completely forgotten about the hazards that Lee had warned of, Takao steamed forwards.

She had only made it a few steps before a pillar of flame erupted from the ground she was standing on, covering her in a sticky flaming substance. Immediately, Takao used her hand to cover the gaping wound that the tanks had inflicted. While her skin could withstand the heat for some time, she would be in serious trouble if flames managed to reach her delicate internals.

Stumbling around and attempting to swat out the fire, Takao was hammered by two explosions that knocked the wind out of her and tossed her into the air. She landed in an undignified heap a little while later, sorely reminded that the minefield was still definitely in play. At least the blast waves from the explosion had put out the fire.

'firing optics damaged... rangefinder knocked out of calibration' her CiC chirped.

Takao got to her feet slowly - there had to be someway through that minefield. She looked around the battlefield, and immediately the tracks left by the scorpion tanks caught her eye. They all seemed to follow some sort of pattern, and they were all grouped so closely together...

Of course! The drones had known the way through. All she had to do was re-trace their tracks, and that would hopefully bring her towards the mission objective - and Lee.

* * *

Authors note:

I'm going to be doing a Q and A thing over the next few days (because I have time, yay). If you have any questions about HoS, shoot me a PM!


	42. Update and New Project

Update:

So I'm not actually dead. Real life has been a b*tch though :/

There will indeed be a new chapter coming out soon.

Also, I've been working on a new project! It is a Kancolle crossover with RWBY. The preview that I've written below may or may not actually make it into the finished story since I'm still drafting up ideas. I've tentatively decided that the main kanmusu character will be the non-canonical shipgirl representation of the VMF Khabarosvk, a late-war soviet concept for a fast armored DD flotilla leader. If any of you play a certain online game involving ships, this HE spewing nigh unkillable speed demon may already be quite infamous to you.

I decided on Khabarosvk because no other kanmusu quite fit the bill for a character that was on even footing with the RWBY characters in terms of combat capability. A battleship or heavy cruiser like Iowa or Atago would in all likeliness be too powerful while traditional destroyers like Fubuki with her non-existent armor would be too weak.

As an armored destroyer with above average armament, the shipgirl VMF Khabarosvk would be a unique and yet non-overpowered nor underpowered addition to a beacon combat team. Her firepower and durability may be extraordinarily high even by huntsmen standards, but her very slow reaction and movement speed (as compared to aura users) means that she needs cover from her team to keep foes away from her.

Visually, she looks like a 18 year old Hibiki and her combat rigging consists of the basic hull outline of Khabarovsk split in two along her waist level with main battery two turrets on each side of her. She can summon her smaller turrets and AA guns at will, and they float around her when summoned. Part of her hair is slotted through a smaller version of the Khabarosvk's smokestack a la Saratoga. Her normal outfit is similar to Umikaze's

Personality-wise, she's your classic fiery, spunky slavic lady. As for combat style, think "cyka blyat rash B".

The decision for Khabarosvk to be the main character is not final. Depending on the responses I get, I may end up swapping her for a canon character like Akizuki or Tenryuu that have similar levels of firepower and protection.

PREVIEW:

"Professor, I can't fight someone without aura. They could get hurt, or worse!"

Ozpin gave Pyyrah a thin smile. "Personally, I'm a little more worried about yourself"

"What?!" exclaimed Pyyrah.

"You will find out in due time. I know you are still highly skeptical about your opponents combat abilities, but I would _heavily advise_ against holding back, for your own sake."

"Good luck, Pyyrah Nikos"

And with that, Professor Ozpin left the room, leaving behind a very confused red-headed athenian warrior.

—

Sometime Later...

The two students face off against one another inside Beacon's combat arena, separated from the onlooking audience by a shimmering barrier of energy. Pyyrah squares up her mysterious opponent, a young woman with dark silver hair and a lithe build. She wears some kind of combat harness as well as a strange hairpiece that remind her of smokestack.

The announcer calls the start of the fight.

Khabarosvk immediately summons a quad-barreled 20mm mount that floats just by her head. The cannons tear up the air with bright yellow and green tracers, but Pyyrah has already disappeared.

Slow… far too slow. Khabarovsk's 48 knot flank speed, which is blisteringly quick for even a destroyer, can't hope to match a mere first year beacon student.

Suddenly, her search radar pings off an object behind her - closing at inhuman speeds.

Khabarovsk spins around and raises her arms but it is too late - Pyrrah's blade comes down as she throws herself sideways… and the tip of the blade catches Khabarovsk's neck with the full force of Pyrrah's thrust behind the attack.

*RRRRRRREEE* - the sound of tearing metal fills the stadium.

A shower of sparks fly, and both combatants are thrown backwards. Pyrrah lands on her feet gracefully, as one would expect from a renowned tournament fighter. Khabarovsk, meanwhile, lands in a crumpled heap, her weight cracking the marble floor.

The audience is stunned. The match was over in just one blow?

"STOP THE MATCH" bellows the referee.

There is silence for a few seconds.

"The winner for this match, as decided by knockout is Pyrr-"

"no" says a small voice. Khabarovsk winces as she stands up, dark fuel-oil dripping from the cut on her neck.

"you're hurt. Are you sure you wish to continue?" asks the referee.

She nods, flinching as the action further opens her wound.

"very well" he says. "Resume the match".

Khabarovsk squares off against Pyyrah, this time careful not to make the same mistakes as last time. The armored Russian destroyer takes a low brawling stance while the combat prodigy is poised in a balanced position that indicates her many years of training.

Without warning, Pyyrah's weapon transforms into a firearm and she pops off several accurate shots at Khabarovsk. The dust infused rifle rounds aren't enough to pierce Khabarovsk's skin, but they are more than enough to knock out her knees from under her, causing her to fall flat on her face.

Pyrrah wastes no time closing the distance and pressing her considerable speed advantage. Khabarovsk stumbles backwards as Pyyrah makes precise, swift slashes with the tip of Milo that leave shallow cuts running along the destroyer girl's arms and waist.

Khabarovsk rolls backwards - and right into Pyyrah's trap. The agile fighter vaults over the smaller girl with a flip and jams her spear backwards, aiming for a vicious stab at the small of the destroyer's back.

However, Khabarovsk anticipates this and angles her back so that the spear fails to find purchase on her natural armor and instead skates off towards the side harmlessly.

Then, with one swift motion she swings her right arm around and grabs the razor-sharp tip of the spear.

Pyyrah had **not** been expecting that. Grabbing the cutting edge of a dust weapon was tantamount to losing a hand, even for strong aura users with defensive semblances!

Ignoring how the dust infused blade has begun to cut into her hand, Khabarovsk yanks - hard.

The aura enhanced strength of a champion fighter is no match for 85,000 raw horsepower, and Milo is flung violently out of Pyyrah's hands and into the arena barrier.

Pyyrah's instincts take over, and she reflexively hits Khabarosvk's torso with a vicious side-kick from her sharpened armored boot.

An audible *CLANG* rings out and Pyrrah clutches her leg in pain.

It had felt like kicking a steel wall!

However, Pyyrah does not lose resolve and instead attacks Khabarosvk with her shield.

Pyyrah lands hit after hit on her much slower opponent, but she might as well have been throwing feathers for all the effect it was having.

*CLANG*

The edge of Pyyrah's shield smashes into Khabarovsk's neck with enough force to decapitate a sizable nevermore. Pyyrah's eyes widen - her opponent hasn't even flinched. Moments later an iron grip tears Pyyrah's shield away from her and sends it flying away.

"Surrender?" asks Khabarovsk.

And that was when Pyrrah noticed something. Her magnetic semblance is resonating _with her opponent._ It is strange, however. Her semblance is telling her that the girl in front of her is a mass of enormous metal one moment, and a completely normal human the next. It was as if her opponent existed both as metal and as non-metal at the same time.

"Just what are you..?"

"same thing I told the others. I'm a destroyer. Though I get the feeling you're not quite ready to believe that yet" says the smaller girl with a shrug. "Now are you gonna surrender, or do I have to knock you on the head first?"

"I've got one more trick up my sleeve"

"Oh really?" asks Khabarovsk sarcastically. "what are you gonna do? _Hit me_?"

It was on that day that Khabarovsk learned the important lesson of winning before gloating.

With tremendous effort, Pyyrah calls upon her semblance and sends the destroyer girl flying high into the air.

Pyyrah wheezes and falls to her knees. She has never tried moving such a truly enormous amount of metal in her life - even if it was somehow in the form of a petite young woman.

Khabarovsk sees stars as she falls. Just how _had_ she done that? Ozpin didn't mention anything about aura users being telepaths. She hits the floor, landing hard on her tailbone and smashing the arena floor.

Somewhere in the audience, Beacon's groundskeeper winces.

Pyyrah dashes for her fallen weapons, but Khabarovsk sees this.

Pyyrah is fast, Khabarovsk knows that much. However, what Pyyrah doesn't know is that she has eight 128mm friends that are a hell of a lot faster than even her.

With a flash of bright light, Khabarovsk summons her four main battery turrets and trains them onto her opponent.

Pyyrah sees this, and although she doesn't recognize exactly what the metal structures hanging off her opponent are, she knows what she has to do to win the match.

With her remaining strength, Pyyrah reaches out with her semblance to grab onto one of the structures. Despite being no larger than a beach ball, she feels as though they weigh hundreds of tons. Slowly, she forces one of the turrets to point at her opponent instead of her.

Khabarovsk of course does not realize this until her C and C center gives the command to fire. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees that her "X" turret has rotated 90 degrees and is now pointed squarely at her face.

"Eh?!" she manages to squeak out before she sees a muzzle flash, then darkness.

Eight explosions, the likes of which has never been seen before in a duel between students, rip through the stadium and kick up a monstrous amount of dust.

When the dust clears, Pyyrah is still on her feet, the high explosive shots having missed her completely and instead having made massive craters in the marble floor. Meanwhile her opponent is sprawled out on the floor, two smoking scorch marks on the side of her head.

VICTORY: PYYRAH NIKKOS shows on the giant display board

the crowd goes wild.

"Can't say I've ever seen a match quite like that" comments Glynda.

"To that I would have to agree" replies Ozpin.

*Later*

"Yeah I sure showed them the might of the Russian navy…" groans Khabarovsk, with her bandaged head in her hands.

The destroyer's neck is also bandaged, as are her arms, waist, and right hand.

"I think I may be the only student in all of these show-matches or whatever that's managed to lose by _accidentally_ _shooting themselves in the face._ At least I hadn't loaded armor-piercing or my head would not be looking very much like a head right now"

"Also, there's a joke in here somewhere about playing Russian Roullette with a 128mm autoloading cannon, but I'm not going to be the one to make it."

"Eh.. well look on the bright side!" chirped Ruby. "You showed everyone that you don't need to have an aura to be a competitive fighter"

 _just super-skin, super strength, and miniaturized super cannons_ she continued in her head.

"besides, I was quite impressed you of all people managed to last that long given Pyyrah's magnetism semblance"

"her… what?"

Ruby explained Pyyrah's semblance.

"SO SHE WAS THE ONE THAT HIJACKED MY TURRET!"

"DIDN'T ANYONE EVER TELL HER THAT MAKING YOUR OPPONENT SHOOT THEMSELVES IS BAD SPORTSMANSHIP"

"OH THAT IS _SOOO_ CHEATING" yelled Grozovoi. "TELL THAT CYKA I WANT A REMATCH AND THIS TIME I'M GOING TO BE USING MY DEPTH CHARGES"

"s-sure thing" stammered Ruby as she backed out the door. "I just remembered that I have to uhhh.. walk my pet fish gotogobye!"

* * *

So what do you all think? Feed back is much appreciated :)

New chapter for the main story should be up sometime this week.


	43. Trial (finale)

UNSC ABANDONED OUTPOST

DRAETHEUS SYSTEM

A feminine figure stepped through the smoking debris of what was once a defense tower. The Corporal sighed with relief, the hand gripping his M6C dropping off his knee and hitting the debris-scattered sand.

"Takao, you missed the party…" He wheezed, finding it harder and harder to keep the air in his lungs.

Takao's heart sank when she saw the ODST leaning on the bullet riddled concrete divider inside the base. Blood from many wounds streaming down his camouflaged armour and pooled around him in a dark crimson puddle.

"Xin An!" She yelled rushing toward the fallen soldier and looking over his wounds, she saw the jagged piece of metal in his side yet dare not touch it for fear of making it worse.

"H-hey grab the canister of biofoam in my rucksack, it should stop the bleeding…" He said, trying to sit up for her to grab the backpack but eliciting another bout of blood-specked coughing instead.

"やめる！(Yameru! Stop!) Stop moving, let me see!" The woman ordered, lifting the hand that he kept over the wound and saw the metal that had pierced him and winched when she saw its extent.

Following his instructions, the Cruiser grabbed the canister from within. She knew it operated similar to an aerosol canister, but first the piece of metal needed to be out for the biofoam to do its work.

"T-that's the first time you used my given name…" Lee wheezed, feeling darkness creep into the edges of his vision.

"Stop talking please… and this may hurt." She said. Before he could question her, Takao pulled.

"EEEAAAAAAUUUGGGGGGHHH!" He screamed, pure agony burned his nerves as the foreign object had been ripped from its self-made home.

Blood splattered as the metal was pulled out, spreading across the sand in an arc. It sprayed a bit from the wound, splattering on her tattered clothing and onto her face. She tasted something metallic. Was this what human blood tasted like? It tasted of steel.

His scream though… Takao had heard screams of pain before but never from Lee. Seeing him react like this wasn't unexpected, but hearing his scream in pure uncensored agony as his blood sprayed from his body was something that burned itself into her mind.

Jabbing the nozzle and releasing the clotting agent into the ODST's gaping wound elicited another long scream of burning pain. It felt like a thousand tiny needles stabbing his internal organs, a colony of burning fire-ants nibbling at his wounded side as the white foam turned pink, then red with his blood. The Corporal began to thrash and shake, convulsing as he muscles twitched where they were torn, Takao held him down- pinning him by his chest to stop him from moving as the wound was sealed.

His screams must have attracted attention since the drones that remained buzzed up and down to find him. Thankfully he screamed so loud that the sound echoed in parts of the FOB, making it harder to for the drones pinpoint. However, Takao knew that at some point they would find them. She couldn't protect Lee, keep him still, shut him up, and prevent him from bleeding out with her arms occupied all at the same time, so she had but one choice.

She surged forwards, using her teeth to pull his shattered helmet off his head. Messy black hair flowed as she captured his lips. Despite the dire situation they were in, she couldn't help but notice every last detail.

There it was… that taste, that steely metallic taste of human blood on the soldier's lips, her soft lips contrasting his.

For Lee? He was in pain… so much pain but it felt… Good? Whatever it was it tasted of alcohol or oil… Diesel perhaps? An unstoppable barrage of stimuli was too much. His eyes rolled back and the young man passed out from a mixture of pure suffering, blood loss, exhaustion, dehydration and confusingly enough-pleasure.

A single drone flew past unnervingly close, hovering right around the corner until the lack of noise caused it to scan another area.

Even though Takao had only kissed him to keep him quiet… she couldn't help but take notice in the feeling of his lips. They weren't soft, yet that slightly rough texture suited him nicely.

"It was all for the mission… right?" She questioned herself.

Shaking her head to clear her… impure thoughts, she walked towards the mission objective. It sat on a concrete pylon with an electronic bell, a large red button that would signal the end of the "exercise" that was meant to end up with Lee dead, and Takao in an ONI research facility.

Takao approached, happy to finally set this whole ordeal behind her. Her hand hovered over the red button when suddenly, a monolith of titanium smashed into her ribcage, sending the Heavy Cruiser careening into one of the abandoned barracks, the half-cylindrical metal structure denting inwards and collapsing onto her in a huge pile of debris.

"Hull plating warped amidships, damage control crews dispatched. Type 89 gun turrets 3 and 4 disabled". Takao ignored her mental warning and pushed through the rubble above her to face the thing that dare sucker punch her.

It rose from the sand slowly. First a robotic arm of some sort. It housed a multi-barrelled autocannon followed closely by a yellow-green hull that resembled the carapace of an insect or crab- smooth, angled armour covered the central torso that connected to the engine servos that drove the arms. Another arm mounted a quintuple-barrelled weapon that housed white-tipped missiles within the tubes. Finally long, triple jointed legs came into view with segmented armor plating that covered all the sections of its limbs.

Sand streamed down its structure, flowing off its joints from where it had been buried. It loomed ominously over the ship turned woman, prepared to eradicate her as it had been programmed to do.

Takao had been heavily warned of this weapon system by Lee. This was the single most dangerous and advanced land unit that the UNSC possesed. The HRUNTING/YGGDRASIL Mark IX, better known to the UNSC grunts as the 'Mantis'.

Takao felt a split above her left eye, oil streaming down the side of her head. Pain stemmed from her leg, her propeller shaft on her left had been bent out of shape. She tried to stand and walk, only managing to limp weakly. Even so, she raised the elevation of her two remaining main battery cannons and fired.

* * *

Lee was awoken from his rather abrupt nap by vibration and cannon-fire. Well, even the dead could wake if a quartet of 203 mm naval guns went off about twenty meters away. Lee strained to look up, feeling a sharp stab of pain from his wound.

The towering figure of a Mantis caught his eye, the yellow sparks and flashes of its reverse engineered Forerunner energy shields hurting his eyes slightly. Lee tried to move his leg, finding it responsive but painfully so. His vision was still somewhat hazy and his muscles sore and weak from bloodloss.

An earth shaking impact that staggered the remote-controlled exosuit signalled a full salvo from Takao had hit home, bringing down its shields. Lee was about to cheer if he could, but a salvo of rockets from the mech's M5920 Surface-Ground launcher followed by a sharp yelp of pain that unmistakeably belonged to Takao brought panic to Corporal Lee's mind.

"Damn it all!" Lee cursed, punching the ground he laid on in frustration at his uselessness.

He looked around for something, anything that would let Lee harm the Mantis or at least distract it for Takao to land another good hit. His eyes widened when he spotted a functional training drone pinned under a fallen concrete pillar. An inkling of an idea began to form in his mind...

* * *

Takao fired another one salvo of her main guns and her remaining secondary guns, but the vast majority had been destroyed in her previous engagements and the rockets of the Mantis. The fight would have been heavily in Takao's favor if she was unhurt… but she was far from being in top shape at this point. After all, she had just fought off the equivalent of a small mechanized army, taking quite a bit of damage in the process.

The damage sustained by her optics and rangefinder caused her shells to fly wide of the target.

"W-what! Did you really think that you'd win with a technological advantage!?" She defiantly taunted, firing another salvo of Type 91 Armour piercing shells... which also completely missed.

The Mantis opened up with its chain gun, the armor piercing rounds forcing Takao to the ground through sheer weight of fire. Then the combat mech closed the distance with a grace unexpected from something so bulky, raised an armored leg with a hydraulic hiss, and brought it down on top of Takao's prone form with an earth shattering force that would have crushed a Scorpion flat.

Takao saw red, then black as her body was smashed into the concrete foundation of the base.

When the Mantis finally lifted its foot off Takao, she could see that the combat mech had prepped another weapon. Glowing motes of red light began to gather around the machine's left shoulder.

 _A Spartan Laser_ she thought to herself.

The weapon discharged, sending out a red beam of pure energy that managed to just barely graze the fallen shipgirl on her waist.

Takao yelped in pain as the skin around her left side turned glowed bright orange with heat. The combat mech re-adjusted its aim, it's weapon sights apparently having been shock-damaged by Takao's earlier return fire.

She would die here most likely, no longer able to go home and see Atago or the rest of her sisters again.

At the very least this time she could proudly sink flying her battle colours and firing her guns and… what was that buzzing noise?

"LEE-CHAN!?" Takao exclaimed watching the damnest sight anyone in or outside UNSC service could ever see.

The ODST had taken off his armour, only his machete's scabbard still strapped onto his left bicep and his pouched belt. Both hands clutched a hijacked camera drone that had been stripped of it's weapon. Its rotors whined in protest of the weight of a human soldier.

The Mantis seemed to take notice of where Takao was looking because it turned to see what she was looking at. It was met with an ODST grabbing onto it from above, latching onto its frontal hull. Lee hung on for dear life as the Mantis bucked and fired its weapons wildly in a futile attempt to dislodge its unwanted passenger.

For most, attacking a Mantis a machete would be nothing short of suicidal. For one that knew most of the ins and outs of a Mark IX Mantis such as an ODST, it was a matter of hacking at its exposed sensors until the thing was 'blind'. Tossing his machete away, Lee pulled out his Type 18 Bayonet/ Magnetic charge and attached it to the 'head' of the Mantis with a sharp *Thunk* before letting go.

The ODST was flung to the side, sand and dust kicking up around him as he rolled to a stop. The Mantis still fired its weapons wildly, thinking the ODST was still on top of it. It was completely unaware of the device stuck to its hull until it exploded.

With no more energy shield to absorb the damage, the force quite literally blew the mech's limbs off their mounts, scattering metal scrap all over the compound.

Takao slowly hauled herself up from the concrete that she was half-embedded in.

"Th-thanks Lee-chan"

"Let's not do that again." Lee groaned, hooking an arm over Takao's shoulders to let her help him up.

"Agreed." The warship nodded.

The buzz of the bell rang but a moment later, and a the high pitched whine of thruster engines could be heard as their ride away from the killing grounds approached in the distance.

* * *

DEEP SPACE ONI RESEARCH FACILITY

GALACTIC COORDINATES: 9896-8766-XXX

Pain. Suffering. Revenge. She had once been consumed by such emotions, the hatred boiling just beneath her skin and controlling her every move. But now, her consciousness felt liberated, freed from the constricting chain of... some unexplainable dark force that channeled pure rage through her being. Instead of desiring to tear every human she laid eyes on in half, she now felt a sense of pride, a duty to serve and protect all of mankind as if it were the very purpose of her existence.

And with that, Dawn opened her eyes and stepped back into the world of the living.

* * *

A/N: Yeah I'm not gonna use an OC for my RWBY project. Message received.


End file.
